More than 170 Brotzu patients have chosen hypnosis in ten years, 38 in the first months of this year alone: a practice that does not replace pharmacological therapy, but helps those facing an operation. Twenty of those who used it had to undergo magnetic resonance imaging, over fifty underwent various endoscopic procedures (gastroscopies, colonoscopies) and one hundred had to complete ultrasound-guided biopsies (kidney, liver, pancreas).
A direct testimony comes from Maria Rotella, 53 years old, from Calabria who moved to Sardinia. After a gastric bypass, implanted by the Brotzu Bariatric Surgery team, directed by Giovanni Fantola, he decided to tell his experience to the editorial staff of the Sardinian Union. «I had a session with Dr. Danilo Sirigu before the operation», says the woman, who works as a nurse in life, «his voice and the music in the background relaxed me and made me feel good».
A technique, that of hypnosis, still considered science fiction by many, a taboo.
Starting with the control of stress conditions associated with digestive system pathologies, Brotzu reports, the publication, in 2022, of the only scientific article demonstrating the effectiveness of hypnosis in association with general anesthesia on a liver transplantation.
Agnese Foddis, general director of Brotzu, claims: «The technique allows the patient to reach a particular state of consciousness. The use of words does not replace sedation but helps to relax and speed up recovery times."
The technique, still little used in hospitals, allows patients to reach a particular state of consciousness, while maintaining contact with the surrounding environment: the specialist's task is to prepare the patient for all phases of the surgical process, before, during and after the 'operation.
Lorenzo Musu
