Meta-analysis of biofeedback for tension-type headache: Efficacy, specificity, and treatment moderators (original) (raw)
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The Value of Biofeedback in the Treatment of Chronic Headache: a Four-year Retrospective Study
Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 1984
A four-year retrospective study was completed with 693 headache patients who had completed a specific biofeedback training program. Patients 18 years of age and over were also given a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory to determine psychopathology, depression and anxiety levels, difficulty to motivate, and dependency. The purpose was to examine the long-term effects of biofeedback training on headache problems. Patients seen between January 1977 and December 1980, ages 6 through 72, with migraine, muscle contraction, mixed migraine and muscle contraction, and cluster headache were mailed an invisibly-coded 20-item questionnaire.
Biofeedback in headache: an overview of approaches and evidence
Cleveland Clinic journal of medicine, 2010
Biofeedback-related approaches to headache therapy fall into two broad categories: general biofeedback techniques (often augmented by relaxation-based strategies) and methods linked more directly to the pathophysiology underlying headache. The use of general biofeedback-assisted relaxation techniques for headache has been evaluated extensively by expert panels and meta-analyses. Taken together, these reviews indicate that (1) various forms of biofeedback are effective for migraine and tension-type headache; (2) outcomes with biofeedback rival outcomes with medication therapy; (3) combining biofeedback with medication can enhance outcomes; and (4) despite efficacy in many patients, biofeedback fails to bring significant relief to a sizeable number of headache patients. Biofeedback methods that more directly target headache pathophysiology have focused chiefly on migraine. These headache-specific approaches include blood volume pulse biofeedback, which has considerable supportive evid...
Publication Citation: Biofeedback Can Help Headache Sufferers President, Association for Applied
Reuters Health Network distributed a press release on May 8, 2001, based on research by William J. Mullally, stating that biofeedback is not an effective treatment for migraine and tension-type headaches in adults because it did not improve on results obtained by other standard treatments. A full methodological analysis of his study is not possible, because he has declined to provide a full description of his methodology and results to support his conference abstract.
Biofeedback and relaxation in the treatment of tension headaches: A reply to Belar
Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 1980
1978). J. Behav. Med. 1: 217-239] regarding the comparative efficacy of EMG biofeedback and relaxation training in tension headache and suggests that continued research is needed. Data bearing on her criticisms and suggestions are reviewed. From the five studies addressing this point, we disagree with her major conclusion and contend that there is no consistent advantage of EMG biofeedback over relaxation training.
Headache, 1985
SYNOPSISMuscle contraction headache is associated with sustained contraction of skeletal muscles. Approximately 80 percent of headache sufferers have this form of headache. Behavioral approaches offer a powerful treatment alternative to the use of medication. Studies on the long-term outcome of effectiveness of biofeedback-behavioral programs, however, are scarce. The purposes of this paper were twofold: to assess through a survey method long-term patient progress on headache control 20 months after a specific biofeedback-behavioral program; and to examine how a personality variable (i.e., expectations of control) might be related to success in headache self-regulation. Specifically it was hypothesized that patients with an internal locus of control would be more likely to exercise self-control and rate the biofeedback-behavioral program higher than externally oriented individuals. A self-re-port evaluation questionnaire inquired into the patient's perception of the headache program's effectiveness and the consequent increase or decrease of headache activity. A pain locus of control scale was used as a means to assess the personality variable theses.Of 114 potential subjects contacted, 74 (65%) completed questionnaires for this study. Most 82% of these chronic patients achieved and maintained a significant decrease in overall headache intensity, severity, and duration 20 months after biofeedback-behavioral treatment. Of variables analyzed, sex, number of sessions attended, age at time of treatment program participation, and locus of control were found significant in influencing the effectiveness of training in reducing headache activity. Chronic patients benefiting most were under 40 years of age and had an internal locus of control. We concluded biofeedback behavioral training is an effective form of therapy in treating chronic muscle contraction headache. The pain locus of control scale appears useful for predicting and possibly selecting patients most likely to succeed in biofeedback-behavioral headache treatment programs.
Biofeedback therapy for headache and other pain: An evaluative review
Pain, 1979
A survey of the literature is presented in two areas of biofeedback treatment for headache-muscle contraction and migraine-and a variety of miscellaneous pain syndromes. The studies done to date are characterized largely by lack of proper no-treatment or placebo control groups, by confounding biofeedback with a variety of other strategies, or by sample sizes too small to afford any reasonable conclusions about efficacy. There is some evidence that biofeedback works better for muscle contraction headache than false feedback, but it also appears that biofeedback is no more effective than relaxation training. The application of biofeedback to migraine or other pain sy~,aromes remains of unproven value. Investigators seldom attempt to rely.re empirically their interventions to hypothetical models of pain mechanisms. The potential influence of extraneous factors linked to the therapeuo tic situation is pervasive in these studies, but examination of their specific roles in symptom reduction is largely missing. Some variables are listed which need to be examined and which may contribute to the alleviation of pain with much less expenditure of clinical resources than that demanded by biofeedback. Perhaps the main contribution of biofeedback has been to highlight such extraneous variables in the pain treatment setting.