Being admitted to hospital
Devinder Rana, Dominic Upton in Psychology for Nurses, 2013
In light of the heterogeneity of intervention, however, intervention formats, surgical procedures and the potential of individual differences to interact with treatment outcomes, the results achieved by psychological preparation for surgery are generally positive and can be considered a robust effect. A number of reviews and meta-analyses have reported on this and have delineated some of the individual elements which are the most successful. For example, Johnston and Vögele (1993) found that procedural information and behavioural instructions demonstrated the clearest of effects with both forms of intervention having a positive impact on all forms of reported outcomes: for example, negative affect, pain, pain medication, length of stay, behavioural and clinical indices, and satisfaction. Relaxation training (of various forms) is also highly effective and showed positive benefits on nearly all measures of outcomes. Finally, they found sensory information, hypnotic and emotion-focused approaches to be rather less effective in improving outcome. However, these interventions have been explored in fewer studies and the procedures may be less well developed. In a more recent study comparing the effects of structured attention, self-hypnotic relaxation and standard care in a group of patients undergoing percutaneous vascular and renal procedures (angiographies), hypnosis had more pronounced effects on pain and anxiety reduction (Lang et al., 2000).
Complementary management of diabetes
Helen Cooper, Robert Geyer, Ian Botham in Riding the Diabetes Rollercoaster, 2018
In addition to this ‘pill-popping’ bias, modern medical research with its mechanical orientation has generally ignored the vague and fuzzy areas of complementary medicine such as relaxation therapy. In fact, it is only in the last 10 to 20 years that major research has begun to explore the impact and potential benefits of relaxation therapies. Early studies were not promising. For example, a systematic review of research studies concerning education and psychosocial interventions for people with diabetes found that relaxation training did not have a major impact on blood glucose control.3 Another extensive evaluation of relaxation training in people who had type 2 diabetes reinforced these results.4 In this later study, 38 randomly selected individuals (a very, very small number of people!) were given conventional intensive diabetes therapy, with half (19 individuals) also having eight weekly sessions of relaxation training (a very short course of relaxation training!). Blood glucose control improved in both groups, but with no extra benefit for the group that received the relaxation training. However, and this is the important point, the researchers found that even given this very short relaxation course, for the more anxious patients the relaxation training selectively helped them to feel much better about their condition, potentially leading to better management in the long term. This conclusion was reinforced later by Aikens et al.5
Audio Visual Entrainment and Acupressure Therapy for Insomnia
Anne George, Oluwatobi Samuel Oluwafemi, Blessy Joseph, Sabu Thomas, Sebastian Mathew, V. Raji in Holistic Healthcare, 2017
There are psychological and behavioral techniques that can be helpful for treating insomnia. Relaxation training, stimulus control, sleep restriction, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are some examples. Relaxation training, or progressive muscle relaxation, teaches the person to systematically tense and relax muscles in different areas of the body. This helps to calm the body and induce sleep. Other relaxation techniques that help many people sleep involve breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation techniques, and guided imagery. Stimulus control helps to build an association between the bedroom and sleep by limiting the type of activities allowed in the bedroom. An example of stimulus control is going to bed only when you are sleepy, and getting out of bed if you have been awake for 20 min or more. This helps to break an unhealthy association between the bedroom and wakefulness. Sleep restriction involves a strict schedule of bedtimes and wake times and limits time in bed to only when a person is sleeping. CBT includes behavioral changes, but it adds a cognitive or “thinking” component. CBT works to challenge unhealthy beliefs and fears around sleep and teach rational, positive thinking. There is a good amount of research supporting the use of CBT for insomnia. For example, in one study, patients with insomnia attended one CBT session via the internet per week, for six weeks. After the treatment, these people had improved sleep quality. However, such treatment comes at an expensive price and requires continuous sessions with a specialist.
Behavioral therapies in headache: focus on mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy in children and adolescents
Published in Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 2019
Noemi Faedda, Giulia Natalucci, Valentina Baglioni, Flavia Giannotti, Rita Cerutti, Vincenzo Guidetti
A. Relaxation training helps the individuals to relax and reduce the levels of pain, anxiety, stress or anger. These techniques have been shown to be as effective as pharmacological treatment in children, adolescents and adults, improving the frequency, intensity, and duration of headache [31,32]. Relaxation training seems to be applicable also for young headache patients. Tornoe and Skov [33] conducted a pilot study to assess the effect of computer animated relaxation therapy in children between 7 and 13 years with tension-type headache, founding a mean improvement of 45% for headache frequency at 3 months follow up versus baseline and a significant reduction in headache frequency for all participants. The most common relaxation techniques used for headache patients are progressive muscle relaxation (PMR), autogenic phrases, self-hypnosis, guided imagery (GI), and diaphragmatic breathing [12,34].
Relaxation techniques for depressive disorders in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials
Published in International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 2020
Min Li, Lei Wang, Meina Jiang, Di Wu, Tian Tian, Weixin Huang
The characteristics of the 9 included studies are described in Table 1. This meta-analysis included 312 participants, all of whom met the inclusion criteria. Seven studies (Pace 1977; Wilson 1982; McCann and Holmes 1984; Murphy et al. 1995; Krampen 1997; Carpenter et al. 2008) used the BDI to evaluate depressive symptoms after the intervention, while the other three studies used the SDS (Shinozaki et al. 2010), HADS-D (Schröder et al. 2013) and EPDS (Araujo et al. 2016) to measure depression. These four scales were self-rated scales. The duration between baseline and post-treatment outcome assessment was categorised as ≤8 weeks (Pace 1977; Wilson 1982; Shinozaki et al. 2010; Schröder et al. 2013; Araujo et al. 2016) and >8 weeks (McCann and Holmes 1984; Murphy et al. 1995; Krampen 1997; Carpenter et al. 2008). Regarding the type of relaxation technique, 4 studies (Pace 1977; Wilson 1982; Schröder et al. 2013) used progressive muscle relaxation and2 studies (Krampen 1997; Shinozaki et al. 2010) used autogenic training, while the others used aerobic exercise (McCann and Holmes 1984), Jacobson’s relaxation technique or a derivative (Murphy et al. 1995), progressive muscle relaxation plus other relaxation techniques (Carpenter et al. 2008) and the Benson relaxation technique (Araujo et al. 2016). The control conditions included psychological treatment (Murphy et al. 1995; Pace 1977; Carpenter et al. 2008; Shinozaki et al. 2010), wait-list, minimal contact and placebo (Wilson 1982; McCann and Holmes 1984; Krampen 1997; Schröder et al. 2013; Araujo et al. 2016).
The physiotherapist, an untapped resource for headaches: a survey of university students
Published in European Journal of Physiotherapy, 2018
Anna-Maria Johansson, Hannah Vikingsson, Emma Varkey
People with headaches often are less physically active than people who do not suffer from headaches [19]. The physiotherapeutic treatments used to treat headache-related problems are, among others, relaxation training, acupuncture and exercise [20]. Relaxation training can be performed in the home environment as well as in a clinic, and studies have shown that it has good effect on both TTH and migraine [21–24]. In migraine treatment, relaxation training has grade A evidence [25]. There is also evidence for acupuncture as an effective treatment method, with regard to both the intensity and the frequency of TTHs [26] and migraine [27]. When it comes to exercise as a treatment method, aerobic exercise has been reported to be effective in preventing migraine [17], while strength training for neck and shoulder muscles has been shown to be equivalent to both acupuncture and relaxation techniques when treating chronic TTH [28]. A meta-analysis from 2015 showed that physiotherapeutic interventions can have a significant effect on both TTH and migraine in terms of intensity, duration and frequency of headache [20].
Related Knowledge Centers
- Anxiety
- Autogenic Training
- Biofeedback
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation
- Stress
- Pain
- Calmness
- Anger
- Stress Management
- Guided Imagery