Dr. Jeffrey Bolek Phd has been doing some amazing work at the Cleveland Clinic’s Motor Control Program. Here is a story of how Dr. Bolek used his work to help a stroke patient walk again within a few weeks.
Teen goes from wheelchair to walking in three weeks
It’s the leading cause of debilitating illness in this country but imagine being told as a teenager you’ll spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. Read the rest of this entry »
It was great to see biofeedback getting a bit of attention in a recent column in the Detroit Free Press. Here is the column:
Dr. Paul Donohue: Your Health
Biofeedback help for headaches no hoax
Dear Dr. Donohue: From time to time, I have headaches that make my life really miserable. I have tried many pain relievers, but none works dependably for me.
I have also seen my share of doctors, including neurologists. None of them says these are migraine headaches. None of their suggestions has helped. A friend, who is into alternative medical treatments, suggests I try biofeedback. What is your opinion of it? Is it a hoax?
B.N.
Dear B.N.: Biofeedback isn’t a hoax. It has a legitimate role in the treatment of many illnesses and in the control of pain. It’s a way to teach the body how to respond to pain and how to minimize it. It’s an attempt to get the body to heal itself.
If you go the biofeedback route, see a person who is well-trained in this kind of therapy. It requires a professional who knows the techniques and how to apply them.
Your family doctor might be able to help you locate such a person.
For people suffering from headaches, the therapist applies sensors to the scalp. They monitor the action of scalp muscles. If the muscles are contracting, as they do in tension headaches, they transmit that information to a screen so it is displayed.
The therapist teaches the person how to relax the contracting muscles. That is seen on the screen, too.
With relaxation of the scalp muscles, pain should ease or go away. This doesn’t work in one session. You have to practice the technique until you’ve mastered it.
Biofeedback doesn’t work for all people or for all illnesses. When it is successful, it’s a wonderful way to control pain without resorting to drugs.
Write to Dr. Donohue at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Readers may also order health newsletters from www.rbmamall.com.
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110304/OPINION03/103040314/Biofeedback-help-for-headaches-no-hoax#ixzz1Fn2t4n3l
Biofeedback training has been widely recognized as an excellent way to promote a relaxed state for many sports applications. Many studies have been done on using biofeedback as a method of relaxation and to increase performance.
Athletes should ask themselves “Can I perform better in a relaxed state?” If it is the bottom of the ninth, with the bases loaded, the athlete needs to be able to clear their mind and focus on the performance. Anxiety and high stress can cause many athletes to “choke” in clutch situations. By learning to alter their mental and physiological state with a few simple relaxation techniques they tend to perform better. Biofeedback devices are great tools in achieving these results.
There have been several Olympic athletes, NHL hockey teams, professional football teams, golfers and more, that have credited biofeedback training as a factor in their success.
In a recent chat with Thought Technology Vice President Lawrence Klein, he could not resist the opportunity to discuss the many uses of his company’s biofeedback and neurofeedback equipment. Mr. Klein said, “We have a strong presence in professional and elite sports.” Thought Technology’s equipment has been used by a number of leading Olympic Sport Coaches and several professional sports teams.
Some teams have even set up mental training centers where trainers monitor the brainwaves and other physical functions such as surface EMG, temperature, GSR, heart rate, and respiration. This helps the players learn to reduce performance anxiety and improve their ability to focus under stress – giving them the “mental edge” they need to win.
There are devices like the Resperate, that promote meditative breathing patterns and very simple to use items such as the GSR2, that measures minute changes in skin conductance or resistance and conveys the stress level by an audio tone. These devices are easy to use and very effective. Organizations and teams have also used more sophisticated systems that measure multiple physiological measurements at once for a picture of the body’s stress level.
More recently there are products being introduced to help speed up reaction time. Reaction time can be crucial in many sporting events and in the Olympics millisecond can be the difference between gold and bronze.
Below are a couple of videos about biofeedback and athletic performance.
Updated:Based on a recent analysis of evidence-based studies, the American Academy of Pediatrics has now recognized biofeedback (EMG- Biofeedback) as clinically efficacious in the treatment of attention and hyperactivity disorders.
The American Academy of Pediatrics’s analysis determined that using these interventions improves attention and reduces hyperactivity. See the report from AAP here.
The history of muscle pain and dysfunction is viewed through the lens of a four factor theory of histologic (tissue related) issues, psychologic (emotional) issues, sensory motor (movement) issues, and biomechanical (postural) issues. The historical antecedents of both bodywork and surface electromyography are reviewed.
Key words: Surface EMG, SEMG, bodywork, trigger points, posture, emotions, movement
Note: Parts of this article have appeared in The History of SEMG, Jour App Psychophys and Biof, In Press.
Jeffrey R. Cram, PhD and Maya Durie, MEd, CMT Read the rest of this entry »
Bruxism, or teeth grinding, is highly prevalent in our society, with perhaps 5% of society having symptoms severe enough to warrant teatment. Bruxism is highly correlated with symptoms associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in both adults and children. Among adults we observe it most in women with “Type A” personalities and/or aggressive/driven lifestyles. However, this may also only indicate that such women are more likely to seek help for this condition.
Bruxism is also highly correlated with chronic pain in general, and with headache pain in particular. Both ADHD characteristics and chronic pain are in turn correlated with cortical underarousal (a dominance of slow moving brainwave actitivty), making it attractive to suppose that bruxism may also be regarded as an underarousal condition. The theory that bruxism is causally related to a purely dental phenomenon such as malocclusion is only sparsely supported. Certainly malocclusion can give rise to chronic bruxing. However, many cases of bruxism are manifestly not grounded in problems of malocclusion. Hence, a central nervous system hypothesis is coming to the fore: Read the rest of this entry »
Ergonomic Solutions Alone Won’t Help Prevent Computer-Related Injuries
SAN FRANCISCO, May 31 (AScribe News) — New research shows it takes more than just an ergonomic desk chair or a split keyboard to prevent the health problems affecting millions of computer users.
But that doesn’t mean computer users must resign themselves to a life of chronic pain, say Dr. Erik Peper and Katherine Hughes Gibney of San Francisco State University’s Institute for Holistic Healing Studies. Read the rest of this entry »
Electromyographic (EMG) instruments have been used for many years to detect muscle action potentials through the application of surface or needle electrodes. Monitored activity can range from less than 0.1 microvolts to as high as several thousand microvolts. For example, relaxed muscles – such as those in the forehead region – generally exhibit voltages in the range of .75 to 3 microvolts, whereas tensed large muscles – such as the quadriceps – can exhibit activity as high as 2000 microvolts.
Even though most people are aware of the effects of gross muscle activity, lower chronic levels of activity often produce no visible movement or perceptible sensation and as a result go unnoticed, often resulting in muscle fatigue and pain. Read the rest of this entry »
Psychologists now have a more accurate, refined way of billing for services provided to patients with a physical health diagnosis, thanks to the advent of six new reimbursement codes under the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) coding system.
As of January 1, 2002, codes for health and behavior assessment and intervention services now apply to behavioral, social, and psychophysiological procedures for the prevention, treatment or management of physical health problems. Developing these new codes involved the combined efforts of the APA’s Practice Directorate and the Interdivisional Healthcare Committee (IHC), representing APA divisions 17, 22, 38, 40 and 54. This constitutes a milestone in the recognition of psychologists as health care providers. Read the rest of this entry »
Ask the Practitioner
Why should the Physical Medicine Practitioner be interested in sEMG?
Many physical medicine practitioners work with soft tissue problems. While traditional methods of assessing pain related problems, such as radiographic techniques, needle EMG studies and Nerve Conduction Velocity studies are well suitable for bone and nerve related problems, they are insensitive to muscle, tendon, ligament and articular dysfunctions. And traditional methods for assessing soft tissue pain related problems, such as palpation, are ultimately subjective. Read the rest of this entry »
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