Solacea

Complementary therapies

Comfort-focused care, alongside your treatment

Gentle, evidence-informed therapies to ease symptoms, calm the mind, and support quality of life — working with your medical care, never replacing it.

What complementary therapy means at Solacea

Complementary therapies sit beside your medical care. They don't replace medication or treatment from your doctor — we use them to help with pain, anxiety, poor sleep, nausea, fatigue, and low mood, and to bring moments of calm and dignity. Every therapy is reviewed for safety with your care team before it starts.

Evidence:Well supportedPromisingComfort-focused

We label every therapy with what the evidence actually supports. “Comfort-focused” does not mean it is not worth having — it means we offer it for how the hour feels, not for changing the disease, and we would rather say so than let a stronger word do the selling.

Energy & breath

Reiki

Comfort-focused
What it is
A gentle, hands-on or hands-near practice that invites the nervous system out of alarm and into deep rest — no pressure, no manipulation, just quiet presence.
How it helps
Settles the anxiety and restlessness that often ride alongside advanced cancer, heart failure, and kidney disease — the fear that tightens breathing and sharpens pain. Many patients report calmer nights, softer pain, and a sense of being cared for when the body is too tired for anything active. Safe at any stage, including bedside in the final weeks.
A session feels like
Fully clothed, lying down or seated. Warm hands resting lightly or hovering. Quiet and slow — 30–45 minutes; many people drift into sleep.
Full guide Safety notesRequest

Qi Gong

Promising
What it is
Slow, flowing movement synchronized with breath and attention, from Chinese tradition. Fully adaptable — standing, seated, or moving only the hands and breath.
How it helps
Teaches paced breathing that can take the panic edge off breathlessness in COPD and lung fibrosis. Gently rebuilds stamina in heart-failure and cancer-related fatigue without straining the heart. For stroke and early ALS, seated forms keep joints moving and preserve a sense of agency in a changing body.
A session feels like
Soft, repeated movements at your own pace — closer to slow tai chi than exercise. Nothing held, nothing forced; a chair or bed version always exists.
Full guide Safety notesRequest

Movement

Yoga — gentle & restorative

Well supported
What it is
Supported, held postures with slow breathing — bolsters, chairs, and blankets do the work so the body can release without effort.
How it helps
Research in cancer care links gentle yoga with less fatigue, better sleep, and lower anxiety during and after treatment. Supported chest-opening postures give breathless patients (COPD, heart failure, lung involvement) more room to breathe; gentle stretching eases the stiffness of long bed rest and steroid-related muscle loss. Adapted to bone metastases and fragile joints — always cleared with the medical team first.
A session feels like
Slow and fully supported — props, chairs, or the bed itself. Held rests rather than flowing sequences. Nothing forced, nothing acrobatic.
Full guide Safety notesRequest

Body & touch

Massage

Well supported
What it is
Comforting, intentionally light touch — hands, feet, shoulders, back — by a therapist trained in oncology and palliative massage, with pressure adjusted to your body and blood counts.
How it helps
Softens cancer pain by releasing the muscle guarding that builds around it, and eases the deep ache of long immobility in stroke, ALS, and late-stage illness. Gentle foot and hand massage comforts chemotherapy neuropathy. Beyond symptoms, skilled touch answers the isolation many patients feel when most contact has become medical. We also teach family members simple, safe strokes — a way to help when words run out. Adjusted for low platelets, bone metastases, lymphedema, and fragile skin.
A session feels like
Calm and unhurried, clothed or draped as you prefer. You choose the area and pressure; you can stop anytime.
Full guide Safety notesRequest

Acupuncture

Well supported
What it is
Very fine, sterile, single-use needles placed at specific points, from Traditional Chinese Medicine — one of the most-studied complementary therapies in cancer care.
How it helps
Strongest evidence is for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, where it works alongside anti-nausea medicines. Also used for cancer pain as an adjunct to (never instead of) pain medication, radiation-related dry mouth, hot flashes with hormone therapy for breast or prostate cancer, and chemotherapy neuropathy. Timed around blood counts — deferred when platelets or white cells are low.
A session feels like
A brief, light sensation as each needle settles, then 20–30 minutes of quiet rest. Most people find it unexpectedly relaxing.
Full guide Safety: bleeding riskRequest

Infrared sauna

Comfort-focused
What it is
Dry, radiant warmth from infrared panels at a much gentler temperature than a conventional sauna, in short, supervised sessions.
How it helps
Eases the muscle and joint aching that comes with long illness, treatment recovery, and immobility, and gives a comforting sense of warmth to bodies that struggle to stay warm. Not suitable for everyone: unstable heart failure, low blood pressure, fluid restrictions in kidney disease, and neuropathy that blunts heat sensing all require explicit physician clearance first — this is the most medically gated therapy we offer.
A session feels like
Warm and enveloping, never punishing. Short sessions, water within reach, someone always nearby.
Full guide Safety: needs clearanceRequest

Mind & senses

Meditation & Mindfulness

Well supported
What it is
Guided attention and breathing practices that change your relationship with symptoms — not by pretending they're absent, but by loosening the fear wrapped around them.
How it helps
Pain research shows mindfulness can lower how intensely pain is felt and how much it dominates the day. Breath-focused practice interrupts the breathlessness-panic spiral of COPD and heart failure. Helps with scan anxiety, sleepless 3 a.m. thoughts, and the racing mind that follows a serious diagnosis — for caregivers as much as patients. Usable at every stage, in bed, even when energy is nearly gone.
A session feels like
A calm voice guiding you; nothing to get right and no experience needed. Sessions can be five minutes or thirty.
Full guide Safety notesRequest

Music therapy

Well supported
What it is
Music chosen for one particular person — live or recorded, listened to or joined in with. Songs with a history behind them, not background sound.
How it helps
Familiar music reaches people whom dementia or delirium has made hard to reach, easing agitation without extra sedation. Slow rhythms steady breathing during pain flares and procedures. For ALS and stroke patients losing speech, music remains a channel for expression and connection. At the end of life, hearing persists — favorite music becomes a way for families to stay present to the very last days.
A session feels like
You listen or join in as much as you like — restful, never performative. Bedside sessions are common, and families are welcome to sing.
Full guide Safety notesRequest

Sound therapy

Comfort-focused
What it is
Singing bowls, gong, chimes and sustained tone — instruments played for their sound rather than for songs. Often called a sound bath.
How it helps
Eases tension and unwinds a braced body before sleep, and gives the low background hum of worry somewhere to settle. Reaches people who cannot be touched or who are too tired to follow any instruction. Offered honestly for comfort and experience: the evidence is thinner than for music therapy, and the full guide says so plainly.
A session feels like
You lie or sit while quiet tone fills the room. Nothing to follow and nothing to get right; many people fall asleep. Family are welcome to receive it too.
Full guide Safety: needs clearanceRequest

Art therapy

Promising
What it is
Drawing, painting, collage, and simple making with a trained art therapist — expression for the things illness makes hard to say out loud.
How it helps
Gives shape to the grief, anger, and fear that follow a serious diagnosis, when talking feels impossible or exhausting. Supports legacy work — hand prints, memory books, letters in image form — that families keep. Especially powerful for children, both young patients and the children of ill parents, who often process in pictures what they cannot in words.
A session feels like
No skill needed and nothing judged. You make at your own pace; the process, not the product, is the point.
Full guide Safety notesRequest

Whole-body

Naturopathy

Promising
What it is
A consultation with our naturopath covering food, herbs, supplements, and daily rhythm — every recommendation cross-checked against your medications and cancer treatment through our drug–herb interaction screening.
How it helps
Practical help for the appetite loss, taste changes, and weight loss of advanced cancer; gentle strategies for opioid-related constipation; food adjustments that respect the fluid and potassium limits of kidney and heart disease. Just as importantly: honest, safety-first guidance on the jamu and supplements families are already considering — what's safe alongside chemotherapy and blood thinners, and what isn't.
A session feels like
An unhurried conversation about how you actually eat, sleep, and feel — ending with a few realistic suggestions, never a lecture.
Full guide Safety: herb interactionsRequest

Aromatherapy

Promising
What it is
Gentle, well-diluted plant essential oils — diffused in the room or applied in light massage — chosen for comfort, memory, and calm.
How it helps
Peppermint and ginger scents can take the edge off treatment-related and anticipatory nausea; lavender supports sleep and eases restlessness. A cool, scented airflow across the face is a simple ritual that many breathless patients find steadying. In the final days, familiar gentle scents keep a room feeling human and personal. Kept low-dose, asthma-aware, and away from broken skin and oxygen equipment.
A session feels like
A faint, pleasant scent in the room or a light touch on hands and feet — never overwhelming; you choose the scent.
Full guide Safety notesRequest

Gentle care, carefully coordinated

Every therapy is discussed with your care team first. Some aren't right for everyone — for example with low platelets, bleeding risk, infections, or certain medications. We'll always check with you and your doctor before starting.

Request a therapy