INTRODUCTION
When a person experiences acute pain where actual tissue
damage is occurring, the body's automatic and protective reaction is to tense
up and restrict movement of the painful area. This is a helpful reaction that
serves to promote survival. However, in chronic pain there is often no ongoing
tissue damage, so the body's natural reaction to tense up leads to chronically
tense muscles that can actually become a major reason for the pain to continue!
In addition, most people with a chronic pain problem experience increased
stress and anxiety. This adds to tension levels affecting muscles, joints, and
connective tissues. Our nervous system also is more active under stress and can
have increased sensitivity to pain. Because these physical signs of tension can
greatly increase pain, tension reduction methods such as biofeedback are common
treatments in pain centers.
Biofeedback helps people learn to recognize and control
physical tension that aggravates their pain. Biofeedback has also been found
helpful in treating anxiety, high blood pressure, Raynaud's disease, insomnia,
teeth grinding, and irritable bowel syndrome.
WHAT
IS BIOFEEDBACK?
Biofeedback is a way of providing auditory and visual
feedback on certain biological functions (hence the name biofeedback). By
providing people with feedback on what is going on in their bodies, they can
learn how to better control their physiology. For chronic pain patients,
biofeedback is most commonly directed at general tension levels and at specific
muscles that are problematically tense and overreactive.
The biofeedback instruments provide immediate auditory or visual information on
whether specific muscles are becoming more or less tense to help people learn
how to relax their muscles more deeply. Biofeedback is also directed at
temperature and perspiration changes that reflect general tension levels.
With biofeedback treatments, electrical leads are attached
to the surface of skin. No needles are involved, and the procedure does not
cause discomfort. In fact, most people find biofeedback treatments a relaxing
and enjoyable experience.
Most people stay relatively unaware of the many biological
changes occurring in their bodies. Increases in muscle tension levels can
easily go unnoticed until we suddenly realize our pain problem is acting up.
Many people stay chronically tense, so that their pain seems unrelated to
fluctuations in stress levels. With the aid of the biofeedback instruments,
patents learn how to recognize problematic physiological changes and how to
reverse them before they set off an episode of increased pain. Thus,
biofeedback helps patients feel and be in greater control of their physiology,
instead of feeling helpless to decrease chronic pain and pain flare‑ups.
This increased sense of control is a key factor underlying all behavioral
strategies for pain management.
continues
Biofeedback is a technique of training the patient to become better able to control physiologic processes. It is particularly useful for relief of tension headaches and other muscular tension based pain problems. It can contribute significantly to the patient's ability to relax and by enabling the patient to overcome the feeling of helplessness that frequently accompanies the chronic pain state. Different types of biofeedback are utilized. In one form, muscle activity is monitored from an area where tension or spasms are suspected. In practice, an electrode is attached at the site and the level of electromyographic muscle activity in that muscle. The patient learns to relax the painful muscles, thereby directly decreasing the pain. The biofeedback monitor is used only as a training tool. The patient tries to develop, through practice, sufficient control of the bodily function of interest so that he can control it, even when it is not monitored by the biofeedback device.
Biofeedback and medical psychologists can also be instrumental in helping you work on new ways to think about the pain - identify what you want to do and problem-solve ways to get on and DO them.
Remember, a newly identified aspect of chronic pain is that the pain triggers emotional feelings that may be hard for the person to deal with alone. They have trouble seeing how they impact on the world around them, and how others see them.
The therapist provides a place for them to talk about this, with someone who understands that these feelings do not mean they are crazy, or the pain is all in their head ... they can help with the confusion the chronic pain individual feels inside and is afraid to express.