Biofeedback

By ashu | July 3, 2007

Biofeedback teaches people how to exert conscious control over various autonomic functions with the help of physiologic feedback. Monitoring of physiologic function can be simple or quite complex with electronic machines. By observing the fluctuations of a particular body function such as breathing, heart rate, or blood pressure patients eventually learn how to adjust their reactions and other thoughts in order to alter that autonomic response. By learning to modify vital functions at will, patients develop theability to control certain conditions such as high blood pressure without the use of medications or other conventional medical treatments.

The idea that people can control vital body processes voluntarily has been accepted in the West for only a few decades, but it has been practiced in the East, through meditation and yoga, for thousands of years. Today, biofeedback is widely used and approved by both conventional and alternative practitioners. It’s popular with patients because it gives them a sense of control over their health problems and helps to lower health care costs; after 8 or 10 training sessions, the patient can usually learn to regulate the desired body process without the help of the monitoring device.

The most common forms of biofeedback are electromyographic (to measure muscle tension), thermal (to measure skin temperature), electrodermal (to measure the skin’s electrical conductance), electroencephalographic (to measure brain wave activity), and respiration (to measure breathing rate). Increasingly sophisticated monitoring devices are continually expanding the applications for biofeedback. For example, sensors can now monitor the action of the internal and external rectal sphincters, allowing treatment of fecal incontinence; the activity of the bladder’s detrusor muscle, allowing treatment of urinary incontinence; and esophageal motility and stomach acidity, providing information on ulcers and esophageal reflux.

The origins of biofeedback date back to the early 1960s, when Neil Miller, an experimental psychologist, suggested that the autonomic nervous system could be “trained.” In a series of experiments, he showed that patients could learn how to control physiologic processes that were previously thought to be beyond voluntary control, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and GI function.

Biofeedback quickly began attracting widespread attention and in the late 1960s, researchers at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, discovered that elevating the temperature of the hands by biofeedback could alleviate migraine headaches. Since then, extensive research has led to numerous new applications for biofeedback as well as increasing acceptance by traditional health care providers, including medical doctors, physical therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and dentists.

Benefits And Uses of Biofeedback

Biofeedback has more than 150 applications for disease prevention and health restoration. It’s used most often for stress related disorders, such as insomnia, anxiety, headaches, hypertension, asthma, GI disorders (ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome), temporomandibular joint syndrome, and hyperactivity in children. The American Medical Association has even endorsed electromyelographic biofeedback for the treatment of muscle contraction headaches.

How the treatment is performed

Biofeedback machines are variations of common diagnostic monitoring systems that have been modified to produce a continuous flow of specific information to the patient. The equipment needed varies, depending on the targeted body function. For instance, a biofeedback machine geared toward helping the patient lower his heart rate might be a cardiac monitor with a light that flashes each time the heart beats. For biofeedback training involving muscle control or activity, a modified electromyelograph might be used. Relaxation and emotional stress can be monitored using a modified electroencephalograph.

Modified temperature probes are used in biofeedback training to treat migraines, hypertension, anxiety, and Ray naud’s disease; lung volume measurements are used to train asthmatic patients to control their breathing; and modified sphygmomanometers are used to train patients to control hypertension. Some biofeedback machines require the use of special goggles to eliminate distractions, allowing the patient to focus on the feedback, which is projected on the inside of the goggle.

Electrodermal feedback (electrical conduction or resistance of the skin) allows an examiner to monitor changes in perspiration. Specialized motility sensors, which pick up movement of the GI tract, are used in the treatment of GI disorders, To treat curvature of the spine, a specialized biofeedback unit worn by the patient emits a soft beep if the patient slouches forward. If the patient doesn’t straighten his posture, the device sounds a louder alarm.

In a typical session, electrodes are attached to the area of the body being monitored, such as the head (for brain wave activity), fingers (for pulse rate), or muscles (for muscle tension), according the manufacturer’s instructions. The electrodes feed information in to a small monitoring box, which registers the results by a sound or light that varies in pitch or light that varies in pitch or brightness as the body function fluctuates. A biofeedback practitioner interprets the signals and guides the patient in mental and physical exercises designed to help him achieve the desired result. The patient eventually trains himself to control his body’s physiologic functions by altering thoughts, breathing, posture, or muscle tension.

Side Effects of Biofeedback

Biofeedback is contraindicated in patients with low blood pressure, psychiatric disorders (including severe depression), impaired attention or memory, or mental handicaps such as dementia. Patients may experience a local skin irritation from the electrodes used in the biofeedback monitoring.

Clinical considerations

Research summary

According to the 1994 report Alternative Medicine: Expanding Medical Horizons, extensive research (including about 3,000 articles and 100 books) has demonstrated biofeedback’s effectiveness in treating alcoholism, drug abuse, tension and migraine headaches, chronic pain syndromes, cardiac arrhythmias, essential hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome, bronchial asthma, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, epilepsy, and hot flashes. Biofeedback is also effective in muscle reeducation and is the preferred treatment for Raynaud’s disease and certain types of fecal and urinary incontinence.

Improvement has also been seen in patients with chronic pain, heart disease, difficulty swallowing, esophageal dysfunction, tinnitus, twitching of the eyelids, fatigue, and cerebral palsy. Biofeedback isn’t recommended for severe structural problems, such as broken bones or herniated discs.


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