The Power of Language
By Harvey Zarren, M.D., F.A.C.C.
As a cardiologist, I was called on one occasion to the recovery room to see a postoperative patient who had suffered a potentially life-threatening heart rhythm disturbance.
My review of the patient's chart revealed no specific evidence for a past medical condition that might result in such a rhythm disturbance. Taking a history from the patient and performing a physical examination revealed no clear information as to what had caused the heart arrhythmia. A review of the patient's electrocardiogram and laboratory data again revealed no clue as to the source of the problem.
I asked the attending recovery room nurse to tell me exactly what had happened from the time the patient left the operating room. She said that everything was perfectly fine until the patient was waking up and she said, "Wake up Mr. (Smith); it's all over!"
I asked the patient what that meant to him, and with a very shaky voice he told me that he thought it meant that he was about to die.
I explained to the patient and the nurse, that in that setting, with that belief, that the patient's mind and body activated his sympathetic (fight or flee) nervous system and produced and released a number of messenger molecules related to acute stress. The nervous system activity and the messenger molecules were more than capable of causing the heart rhythm disturbance.
After leaving some orders for continued surveillance and follow-up tests, I quietly took the nurse aside and suggested that in the future telling a patient something like, "Wake up Mr. (Smith); your operation is completed and you are doing very, very well!" might be more supportive of the patient's recovery.
Indeed, language is very powerful, particularly when people are in a vulnerable condition!
Dr. Zarren, who records guided imagery exercises for The C.A.R.E. Channel, is the Founder and Physician Director of The Healing Connection, a hospital based program at the Union Hospital in Lynn, Massachusetts. Since 1982, Dr. Zarren has been an Assistant Clinical Professor in Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.
