'Hand sandwich' technique should be used to examine ticklish patients, say cancer doctors

Being very ticklish can make important medical examinations difficult

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Cancer doctors have advised other clinicians to use a special technique to examine patients who are ticklish.

For those who are particularly sensitive, being examined can make an already distressing time uncomfortable, while making it difficult for the doctor to check the patient thoroughly.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors proposed using the “hand sandwich” technique which is based on the fact that most people cannot tickle themselves.

The method involves putting the patient’s hands in between the doctor’s hands as they are placed on the body.

By doing so, the patient is able to control the force with which the doctor examines them, Live Science reported.

Dr Christopher Dobson of Royal Preston Hospital in Lancashire, one of the letter’s authors, said that he uses the “hand sandwich” to palpate, or examine, lymph-node basins in the dermatology clinic when examining patients with skin cancer.

“I had one patient so ticklish that even with the most gentle, slow and forewarned palpation, (the patient) could not stop laughing during and after the examination, at a time when they were clearly distressed,” Dobson told Reuters Health told Reuters.

He added that examinations can be “painfully slow” if the technique is not used, in order to ensure ticklish patients are comfortable.