Offering a therapeutic touch

Hand massage program connects with homeless    By Don Aucoin  Globe Staff / May 12, 2008

Lauren Shaeffer is kneading Patrick Coppinger's red, chapped hands, bearing down hard with her thumbs and knuckles, but she can't seem to loosen up his rigid right wrist.

Coppinger, 46, hastens to reassure her that it's not her fault.

"On the outside of this building, in the real world, I have to keep it stiff, because I sometimes have to throw a quick punch," he tells Shaeffer. "Unfortunately the world is not 'Leave It to Beaver' anymore."

Especially if you're homeless, as Coppinger is. (When asked how long, he answers simply: "Too long.") He has problems that no hand massage can fix.

But for 15 minutes, with a CD of Italian operatic pop singer Andrea Bocelli playing, Coppinger experiences human touch, quiet conversation, connection: things that are hard to find when you're bouncing from street to shelter and back again.

He tells Shaeffer, a graduate student in physical therapy at Simmons College, about the seizures that have plagued him since he had an aneurysm 15 years ago. The mood lightens as he quizzes her about her school work and she makes small talk about the previous night's Red Sox game. All the while, she keeps massaging his hands.

When it is over, there is gratitude in his eyes as he picks up his cane and prepares to leave. "You have a good day," she says. "You too, dear," Coppinger replies.

Their worlds could scarcely be more different. Shaeffer is a 26-year-old native of Colorado who had never met a homeless person before she began taking part in the Hand to Hand program. A collaboration between Simmons College and the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, a nonprofit organization, it takes place twice a week at the Barbara McInnis House, an inpatient medical respite facility in Jamaica Plain.

The idea behind the Hand to Hand program, said McInnis House director Sarah Ciambrone, is to provide a "nurturing, comforting relationship" for the facility's patients, almost of all them homeless people who are recovering from illness or accidents or battling diseases like cancer.

For the students who administer the massages (Simmons calls them "hand rubs"), it is both an opportunity and a challenge. It helps fulfill the service-learning component of the Simmons doctoral program in physical therapy, but it also takes them out of their comfort zone and requires them to deal with patients who are battling issues more severe than a pulled hamstring.

Shaeffer, for one, has relished it. What has struck her most in the past four months is not how different the homeless are from the rest of the population, but how similar.

"It has definitely changed my perception of the homeless population," she said. "It's people that I meet every day. Everyone is one paycheck away from being homeless."

Similar thoughts have crossed the mind of Ana Nolasco, the other Simmons grad student conducting hand massages on this recent weekday. "As we were doing the hand rubs with them, they turned out to be like everyone else," said Nolasco, 27. "They wanted to talk. I think that's what they were after."

Kevin Callahan is in a talkative mood as he settles into a chair opposite Nolasco while she applies lotion to her hands. Callahan, 41, has practical reasons as well for looking forward to this massage: In the past, he has broken bones in three places in his left hand, and last winter he suffered frostbite in both hands. "It looks like alligator skin," he said apologetically to Nolasco.

Callahan, who says he has been homeless for eight years, has also been battling insomnia and struggling to adjust to his medication. He has lingering aftereffects from an assault on the street a few years back. "I had my head caved in," he said.

Now, he wants to just not think about any of that for 15 minutes. "Trying to put my life back together again, you know?" he said.

Nolasco starts in on him. She works both of her thumbs on the inside of his palm, then massages each finger individually. "Let me know if I can apply more pressure," she said. Callahan replied, "Much as you want. The more the merrier. The harder you do it, the more tension it seems to draw out."

In fact, between the massage, the soothing background music, and the gentle whoosh of air vents, Callahan seems to drift into a semitrance. "It feels beautiful right around the wrists there," he told Nolasco. "I just feel relaxed."

That is part, but only part, of the point of the Hand to Hand program. Launched in January 2007 with two students, it has involved Nolasco, Shaeffer, and two other students this semester, all of them working toward doctorates in physical therapy.

The Hand to Hand program is the brainchild of Sharon masseur Jonathan Goldberg, of Grateful Massage & Wellness who taught the students some basics of hand massage, and he is present at the clinic on this day, keeping a close eye on his protégés. In Goldberg's view, while the hand massages do bring relaxation to homeless people whose lives are inherently stressful, a more important aspect is the bond, however fleeting, the students establish with them.

"The healing component of the massage is that caring focus," Goldberg says. "Hands are loaded; people use their hands all day long. So hands can provide a nice easy way of connecting."

The first few moments can be awkward, however, as a college student and a homeless person, often meeting for the first time, sit face to face on chairs drawn close to each other.

As a conversation starter, the students might ask a client about any scars on the hands or about an especially ornate tattoo. No such ice-breaker is needed, however, when 38-year-old Recem Justin eases into a chair in front of Shaeffer, a big smile on his face. He has been here before.

Though he has not been homeless for several years, Justin still receives medical care from the facility. He is recuperating from surgery and the massages help in a way that he cannot quite explain. Last time he came in, he had no feeling in one of his hands, but by the time he left, he said, "I was feeling great." He is hoping to feel great again on this day.

"How come you are doing this job?" Justin asked Shaeffer as she begins the massage. She explains that it is part of her physical therapy training. He nods, then tells her about his journey from Haiti to Boston ("Boston is so big") many years ago. "I ended up married, with a family," he said. Shaeffer is listening, and holding up her end of the conversation as well, but through it all she steadily massages his hands: pressing here, circling there.

When it's over, Justin stands up, an ever bigger smile on his face. "Since I started doing this," he said contentedly, "I can feel the change."

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.

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