Can Reiki Help Children With Leukemia?
Can Reiki Help Children With Leukemia? New Research on Pain & Quality of Life
Reiki is often used as a gentle, complementary practice to support relaxation and well-being.
But can Reiki make a measurable difference for children going through something as difficult as leukemia?
A recent study looked at that question—and the findings are worth exploring.
Researchers studied the effects of Reiki on pain, vital signs, oxygen levels, and quality of life in children ages 5–7 with leukemia.
The results were encouraging.
What Was the Purpose of the Study?
The researchers wanted to find out whether Reiki could help young children with leukemia in several areas:
Pain
Heart rate
Breathing rate
Body temperature
Oxygen levels
Quality of life
The goal was not to determine whether Reiki could treat leukemia itself.
Instead, researchers were studying whether Reiki could be used alongside medical treatment to help children feel better and improve their quality of life.
How Did the Study Work?
The study included 66 children between the ages of 5 and 7 who had leukemia and were hospitalized in pediatric oncology units.
The children were randomly assigned to different groups.
One group received Reiki for 20–30 minutes once a day for three consecutive days.
Another group received pseudo-Reiki. This was designed to look like a Reiki session without actually providing Reiki.
There was also a control group.
Importantly, the study was double-blind, meaning the design attempted to reduce the influence of expectations and bias on the results. Researchers assessed the children's pain and quality of life before and after the interventions.
What Did Researchers Find About Reiki for Children With Leukemia?
This is where the findings become particularly interesting.
After the sessions, pain scores were significantly lower in the Reiki group than in both the pseudo-Reiki and control groups.
And this wasn't based on only one person's observation.
Both the children's assessments and their mothers' assessments showed significantly lower pain scores in the Reiki group on days 1, 2, and 3 following the intervention.
Researchers also found that quality-of-life scores were significantly higher in the Reiki group compared with the pseudo-Reiki and control groups.
That's an important finding because quality of life matters tremendously when someone—especially a child—is going through serious medical treatment.
What Didn't Change?
Good research isn't only about reporting positive results.
Researchers did not find a significant difference between the groups in:
Heart rate
Breathing rate
Body temperature
Oxygen saturation
In other words, Reiki was associated with improvements in pain and quality of life, but it did not produce measurable changes in the vital signs researchers studied.
That distinction is important as it helps us look at Reiki research with curiosity without trying to make it say more than it actually does.
Why Is the Pseudo-Reiki Group Important?
One thing that makes this study particularly interesting is the inclusion of pseudo-Reiki.
If researchers simply compared Reiki with doing nothing, we might wonder whether the benefits came from having someone spend quiet, caring time with the child.
By including a pseudo-Reiki group, researchers attempted to separate some of those effects from the Reiki intervention itself.
The fact that the Reiki group showed significantly lower pain and higher quality-of-life scores than both the pseudo-Reiki and control groups makes these findings worthy of further study.
Does This Mean Reiki Treats Leukemia?
No.
And this is probably the most important distinction in the entire conversation.
This study did not investigate whether Reiki could treat leukemia.
The children were receiving conventional medical care. Reiki was studied as a complementary therapy alongside medical treatment, specifically to determine whether it could help with pain and quality of life.
The researchers themselves concluded that Reiki may be useful in addition to medical treatment for reducing pain and improving quality of life in children ages 5–7 with leukemia.
Why This Research Matters
For me, studies like this aren't about trying to prove that Reiki should replace conventional medicine.
It shouldn't.
They're about asking another question:
Can we support the whole person while medicine treats the disease?
Pain matters.
Comfort matters.
Emotional well-being matters.
Quality of life matters.
And when we're talking about children facing cancer treatment, those things matter enormously.
This was a relatively small study of 66 children in a very specific age group, so we shouldn't assume the same results would occur for every child or every type of cancer.
But the findings give researchers something valuable:
another reason to keep asking the questions.
And another opportunity to explore how complementary practices such as Reiki might work alongside conventional medicine to support people during some of life's most difficult moments.
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Heal • Grow • Transform
Curious About Reiki?
Have you ever wondered what Reiki feels like—or whether it might be something you’d like to experience for yourself?
Whether you’re curious about Reiki, interested in a private session, or simply want to learn more about this gentle complementary practice, I invite you to explore further.
💜 Learn more about Reiki and Reiki sessions: www.LiveYourYellowBrickRoad.com/reiki
About the Research
The study, The Effect of Reiki Therapy Performed on Children With Leukemia Between the Ages of 5–7 Years on Pain, Vital Signs and Quality of Life: A Randomized Controlled Study, was conducted by Duygu Demir, Birsen Mutlu, and Emine Türkkan. It was published in the European Journal of Oncology Nursing, Volume 81, with DOI 10.1016/j.ejon.2025.103082.
Reiki is a complementary wellness practice and is not a substitute for medical diagnosis or treatment. Decisions about complementary therapies for a child undergoing cancer treatment should be discussed with the child's oncology team.
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