The Effects of Meditation and Visual Imagery on an Immune System Disorder: Dermatomyositis

Effects of Teleassistance on the Quality of Life of People With Rare Neuromuscular Diseases According to Their Degree of Disability

Rare neuromuscular diseases (RNMDs) are a group of pathologies characterized by a progressive loss of muscular strength, atrophy, fatigue, and other muscle-related symptoms, which affect quality of life (QoL) levels. The low prevalence, high geographical dispersion and disability of these individuals involve difficulties in accessing health and social care services. Teleassistance is presented as a useful tool to perform psychosocial interventions in these situations. The main aim of this research is to assess the effects of a teleassistance psychosocial program on the QoL levels of people with RNMDs who have different levels of disability. A sample of 73 participants was divided into an experimental group (n = 40), which participated in the intervention, and a control wait list group (n = 33). QoL was evaluated through the SIP and the SF-36, and disability through the WHO-DAS II. The participants with a moderate to severe level of disability were those who most benefited from the intervention. The results also revealed that the psychosocial teleassistance program was suitable to improve physical and psychosocial aspects of people suffering from a rare neuromuscular disease with a moderate level of disability, but just psychosocial aspects in those with a severe level of disability.

Qigong and Tai-Chi for Mood Regulation

Qigong and Tai-Chi are traditional self-healing, self-cultivation exercises originating in ancient China. These exercises are characterized by coordinated body posture and movements, deep rhythmic breathing, meditation, and mental focus based on traditional Chinese medicine theories. Although the exact mechanisms of Qigong's and Tai-Chi's effects on physical and mental well-being are unknown, these practices may be viewed as meditative movements and share many of the healing elements observed in mindfulness meditation. Clinical studies including randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses have shown that both Qigong and Tai-Chi have beneficial effects on psychological well-being and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. Qigong and Tai-Chi frequently involve anchoring attention to interoceptive sensations related to breath or other parts of the body, which has been shown to enhance nonreactivity to aversive thoughts and impulses. Preliminary studies suggest that the slow movements in Qigong and Tai-Chi with slowing of breath frequency could alter the autonomic system and restore homeostasis, attenuating stress related to hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity and modulating the balance of the autonomic nervous system toward parasympathetic dominance. Qigong's and Tai-Chi's effects on emotion regulation could occur through changes in multiple prefrontal regions, the limbic system, and the striatum or in the expression of genes linked to inflammatory responses and stress-related pathways.

Modulation of immune responses in stress by Yoga

Stress is a constant factor in today's fastpaced life that can jeopardize our health if left unchecked. It is only in the last half century that the role of stress in every ailment from the common cold to AIDS has been emphasized, and the mechanisms involved in this process have been studied. Stress influences the immune response presumably through the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis, hypothalamic pituitary-gonadal axis, and the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary system. Various neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, hormones, and cytokines mediate these complex bidirectional interactions between the central nervous system (CNS) and the immune system. The effects of stress on the immune responses result in alterations in the number of immune cells and cytokine dysregulation. Various stress management strategies such as meditation, yoga, hypnosis, and muscle relaxation have been shown to reduce the psychological and physiological effects of stress in cancers and HIV infection. This review aims to discuss the effect of stress on the immune system and examine how relaxation techniques such as Yoga and meditation could regulate the cytokine levels and hence, the immune responses during stress.

Tai Chi and Meditation

The aim of this article is to review the literature on Tai Chi and meditation. A coherent construct is developed that includes a comparative analysis and conceptual synthesis of existing theories. The authors discuss a set of assumptions that justify this synthesis; they also argue that this construct would facilitate greater understanding of Tai Chi from the perspective of meditation. Such synthesis may bring “additional” benefits to Tai Chi practitioners as they could recognize that this mind—body technique holds the essence of meditation. Within the scope of this article, the evidence shows a majority of common features when concerning Tai Chi and meditation. These mutual similarities should be taken into account when performing this type of mind—body medicine by patients and/or therapists. Finally, the authors suggest that this inspiring compilation of movements and mindfulness can be used for practical purposes.

The combined effect of relaxation response and acupuncture on quality of life in patients with HIV: a pilot study

OBJECTIVES

Treatment advances have transformed human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) into a chronic manageable disease; quality of life (QoL) has become an important health outcome. Some studies have shown the individual effects of acupuncture and the relaxation response (RR) in improving QoL of patients with HIV/AIDS. In light of the presumed shared features of acupuncture and the RR, we conducted a pilot study to examine the effects of adding the RR to usual acupuncture treatment on improving the QoL of HIV/AIDS patients.

DESIGN

Two-arm double-blind randomized controlled trial. SETTINGS/LOCATION AND SUBJECTS: We enrolled 119 patients with HIV/AIDS (mean age 46 years, 85% male) who had at least 1 of the highly prevalent HIV-related symptoms and who were receiving acupuncture treatment in an acupuncture clinic in Boston, MA.

INTERVENTION

We randomized patients into intervention (N = 58) and control (N = 61) groups. All participants received individualized acupuncture treatments prescribed by their acupuncturists. While receiving acupuncture treatment, the intervention group wore earphones to listen to tapes with instructions to elicit the RR followed by soft music that was routinely played in the clinic; the control group listened only to soft music.

OUTCOME MEASURES

Three (3) QoL scales: the Medical Outcomes Study HIV health survey, the Functional Assessment of HIV Infection, and the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being, measured at baseline, 4-week, 8-week, and 12-week follow-ups.

RESULTS

At the 12-week follow-up, the intervention group showed significant improvements in emotional (p = 0.0002), spiritual/peace (p = 0.02), physical (p = 0.003) and mental health (p = 0.0003) QoL from baseline. Results of mixed effects regression models indicated linear trends of improvement over time in these dimensions of QoL for the intervention group (p < 0.02). In the control group, the only significant improvement was observed in the emotional QoL (p < 0.01). The intervention group showed trends of greater improvements than the control group (p = 0.07 for 12-week physical health QoL).

CONCLUSIONS

Data from this pilot trial suggested that adding the RR to acupuncture may enhance improvement in QoL of patients with HIV/AIDS. Further investigation on this putative synergistic effect is warranted.

Long-term survival of a patient with widespread metastases from epithelial ovarian carcinoma receiving mind-body therapies: case report and review of the literature

Five-year survival of patients with stage IV epithelial ovarian carcinoma not treated after recurrence is almost non-existent in oncological literature. The authors report a patient almost 30 years after surgery of the primary epithelial ovarian carcinoma lesion and 15 years after recurrent disease and incomplete chemotherapy who is alive without evidence of disease. She received no conventional oncological therapy during the past 15 years but rather used many types of alternative medicine, predominantly mind body therapies. The authors review the relevant literature on this subject and describe what they believe to be the first report of long-term survival of such a patient.

Physiology of long pranayamic breathing: Neural respiratory elements may provide a mechanism that explains how slow deep breathing shifts the autonomic nervous system

Pranayamic breathing, defined as a manipulation of breath movement, has been shown to contribute to a physiologic response characterized by the presence of decreased oxygen consumption, decreased heart rate, and decreased blood pressure, as well as increased theta wave amplitude in EEG recordings, increased parasympathetic activity accompanied by the experience of alertness and reinvigoration. The mechanism of how pranayamic breathing interacts with the nervous system affecting metabolism and autonomic functions remains to be clearly understood. It is our hypothesis that voluntary slow deep breathing functionally resets the autonomic nervous system through stretch-induced inhibitory signals and hyperpolarization currents propagated through both neural and non-neural tissue which synchronizes neural elements in the heart, lungs, limbic system and cortex. During inspiration, stretching of lung tissue produces inhibitory signals by action of slowly adapting stretch receptors (SARs) and hyperpolarization current by action of fibroblasts. Both inhibitory impulses and hyperpolarization current are known to synchronize neural elements leading to the modulation of the nervous system and decreased metabolic activity indicative of the parasympathetic state. In this paper we propose pranayama's physiologic mechanism through a cellular and systems level perspective, involving both neural and non-neural elements. This theoretical description describes a common physiological mechanism underlying pranayama and elucidate the role of the respiratory and cardiovascular system on modulating the autonomic nervous system. Along with facilitating the design of clinical breathing techniques for the treatment of autonomic nervous system and other disorders, this model will also validate pranayama as a topic requiring more research.