Science looks at the role faith plays in maintaining good health
Published: November 16, 2005
Last year, two days before Christmas, Christina Puchalski, M.D., made a house call. The front door opened directly into the living room, where a hospital bed had taken the place of the couch. Puchalski’s heart fell at first sight of her patient, 83-year-old Angela, who was staying with her daughter’s family. Throat cancer had spread throughout Angela’s body; she was thin and gray and could barely sit up.
Angela was dying; everybody knew that. She was out of medical options when she first met Puchalski — a specialist in end-of-life care — 11 months earlier. At the time, Angela’s surgeon had given her two months, and objectively, Puchalski agreed. The only help medicine could offer was some pain relief. “I was really trying to get Angela to understand that this disease would kill her — soon,” she says. But Angela wanted to make it through one last holiday season with her family.
So Angela prayed. She loved the rosary; she loved hymns. Her parish priest and another old friend in the clergy visited regularly. Each month, Angela grew weaker, but she held on. In November, shortly after her husband died, Angela didn’t open her eyes for two days. When she finally awoke, family members were gathered around, telling her it was okay to let go. “What are you talking about?” she asked with typical spunk. “I’m not going anywhere.”
But with Christmas only two days away, Puchalski stood at the doorway, filled with concern for her patient. Then Angela’s family came trooping in, and the gloom vanished. Puchalski was drawn into Christmas revelry, Italian-American style. Music played; a small Nativity scene sat near the tree, along with a picture of Mary and a rosary. Angela’s exuberant 7-year-old granddaughter presented the doctor with a gift.
And Angela started laughing. She made it through that Christmas, and New Year’s to boot. In February, a year after she’d been given two months to live, she died.
A DOSE OF PRAYER
Could prayer account for Angela’s remarkable endurance? Many Americans would say yes. According to a recent CDC survey of more than 31,000 adults, 43% had prayed for their own health, 24% were prayed for by others, and 10% had prayed as part of a group on behalf of others — what’s called intercessory prayer. The survey found that prayer was by far the most commonly used method among complementary and alternative therapies. The National Institutes of Health has sponsored at least $3.1 million in research over the past few years to study prayer’s effect on heart disease, cancer and AIDS, among other conditions.
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