I was never aware of this type of therapy so thought an interesting topic to include for information. It especially received my attention when it mentioned chronic pain such as migraine/headache treatment.
Biofeedback therapy involves training patients to control physiological processes such as muscle tension, blood pressure, or heart rate.
These processes usually occur involuntarily, however, patients who receive help from a biofeedback therapist can learn how to completely manipulate them at will.
Biofeedback is typically used to treat chronic pain, urinary incontinence, high blood pressure, tension headache, and migraine headache.
The three most common types of biofeedback therapy are:
- Thermal biofeedback – which measures skin temperature
- Electromyography – measures muscle tension
- Neurofeedback – measures brain wave activity
Biofeedback is particularly effective at treating conditions brought on by severe stress. When a person is stressed, their internal processes such as blood pressure can become irregular. Biofeedback therapy teaches these patients certain relaxation and mental exercises which can alleviate their symptoms.
Therapists can measure a patient’s performance by attaching electrodes to their skin and displaying the processes on a monitor. Eventually patients learn how to control these processes without the need to be monitored.
During a biofeedback session, electrodes will be attached to the patient’s skin, which sends information to a monitoring box. The biofeedback therapist reads the measurements and through trial and error singles out mental activities that help regulate the patient’s bodily processes.
Sessions are typically less than an hour long – most people will begin to see positive results after 8 sessions. However, some patients may need a as many as 50 sessions.
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Thank you for sharing this. I deal with chronic pain and migraines. This was great information!
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I apologize for the delay in this response to your comment. Dealing with chronic pain/migraines and getting up each morning to face another day is a true achievement. Pat yourself on the back. Happy the info helped, have a great day! 🙂
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Thank you for sharing. I have urinary incontinence from my Spinal Cord Injury and will consider use of this therapy
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Thanks for commenting and happy to hear this article was useful. 🙂
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Thank so much for this post. I have lived with chronic headaches for the past 8 years and have only recently understood the link between anxiety and headaches/ migraines. Over the past few weeks I have been doing my own “home – made” biofeedback experiments where I have been tracking my own heart rate. I found on the days where my hear rate was higher or more up and down I would get headaches. It really does seem like knowledge is power!
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So happy the post was valuable and thanks for commenting. 🙂
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