This is a case report of a 76 year-old male whose symptoms of both shoulders were improved by Electromyogram-Biofeedback (EMG-BF). This patient had involuntary muscle movements after having a stroke, and image diagnoses using CT, MRI, etc, revealed the presence of several infarction lesions on the Cerebral basal ganglia of both side. EMG-BF was performed on the left infrascapular region where the symptom was most markedly appeared. From the 15th session, we administered EMG-BF by adding exercise using a treadmill. According to the shaping method, the degree of myotony on the antigravity muscles of the upper half body decreased and the patient's involuntary movements were finally disappeared. Based on these observations and by considering the benefits of this treatment method, EMG-BF should be used more actively in the treatment of elderly patients.

抄録全体を表示

Non-ulcer dyspepsia(NUD) are functional gastrointestinal disorders with a variety of symptoms, which typically include upper abdominal symptoms(epigastric discomfort or pain, early satiety, epigastric fullness, nausea postprandial vomiting and anorexia), occurring without any diagnosable physical cause. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of biofeedback(BF) treatment on functional gastrointestinal disorders. The subjects for this study were 3 NUD out-patients(2 females and 1 male, mean age 19 years, range 14-25 years). Specific BF treatment by electrogastrography(EGG) which teaches a patient to control gastric motility with normal rhythm was used to those NUD patients. EGG measures gastric electrical activity via cutaneous electrodes applied to the epigastric region. The signals were also changed to a EGG waveform on the cathode-ray tube(CRT) by the personal computer(NEC : PC-9801) for the visual feedback to the patients. During the BF training, patients were instructed to pay close attention to feedback and to try to change the EGG waveform to 3cpm normal rhythm. Each training session consisted of a baseline resting for 20 minutes, and followed by the BF training period of 20 minutes. This study was carried out once a week for ten sessions. In one of three NUD patients, who was subjected to a gastric emptying study using the acetaminophen method, the initial gastric emptying was delayed and had returned to normal after ten sessions of EGG-BF treatment. There were not remarkable changes in STAI (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) of pre- and post-treatment periods for those NUD patients. In this study, the appearance rate of abnormal EGG rhythm at pre-treatment baseline was more than 60% in all NUD patients. However, the normal 3 cpm pattern increased with reduction of upper abdominal symptoms in all patients throughout the ten EGG-BF sessions. These results suggest that the BF training may serve as one of the effective therapies for functional gastrointestinal disorders.

抄録全体を表示

In auditory alpha feedback, we have told the subjects to increase the amount of alpha activities as much as they can. In these sessions, at least some subjects have found the increases clearly undesirable, because they have experienced uneasiness or impatient emotions with the increases in alpha activities. In this study, we examined one's ability to voluntarily make the alpha activity (percent time alpha) in the desired character rather than increasing it. To control the alpha activity in the desired chara2cter would be useful for stabilizing our daily emotions. For the biofeedback training, we set the desired value and threshold of feedback signals according to subjects' personalities. In this experiment, it was necessary for the subject to grasp his alpha activity at just the precise moment. We gave the integrated percent time alpha by voice from the voice synthesiser for the feedback signals. For the preliminary experiment, we examined the effect of feedback training "to increase the alpha activity as much as you can" using the above mentiond feedback technique. From the result of this experiment, it was found this technique was rather effective for increasing the alpha activity than the usual feedback technique. Consequentry, in the main experiment "to increase your percent time alpha up to the desired value during the measuring period (100sec.)", we used this technique. In the experiment, we designed the following three sessions, (1) self-control without feedback, (2) feedback control using the usual technique, (3) feedback control using "the integrated percent time alpha" technique. The result's of these experiments suggested the following : We were able to control the alpha activities in the desired character by self-control, especially by auditory alpha feedback. And the feedback using "the integrated percent time alpha" technique was more effective than that using the usual technique. But the effects were different individually from the subjects' personalities.

抄録全体を表示

Peripheral skin temperature(ST) is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, and the study involved in its voluntary control is useful as an application to peripheral cardiovascular disorders. Especially, many biofeedback (BF) studies have been done to investigate variable factors about ST control. The purpose of this study is to compare the differences induced by trait anxiety during the process of acquiring control over one's ST. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used as the index of anxiety. First, a screening investigation about trait anxiety scores was conducted. Secondly, high and low trait anxiety groups were trained in ST-BF. The assigned tasks were both increasing and decreasing their non-dominant index finger using visual feedback stimulus. The results suggested that high anxiety subjects were superior to low anxiety subjects in controlling their ST. Further, the difference in difficulty between the two tasks was shown. Each group found it easier to do the decrease task, but they couldn't increase their temperature. In addition, an issue of the strategy for ST control is also discussed.

抄録全体を表示

Multidisciplinary behavioral approach was performed to a patient suffering from chronic pain and panic disorder due to sequela of histerectomy and sacral nerve damage. Temperature, EMG and Plethysmographic biofeedback training, soft massage technique and cognitive therapy were applied to each of contingent complaints as occasion demands. Chronic pain was relieved through 6 months' treatment of muscle rexation, psychological desensitization of vascular spasm and cognitive interventions of obsessive thought of "recurrence of uterine cancer and death". If the postoperative reccuperation is not enough as expected in the control of pain and the tissue damage, behavioral approach is one of suggestions in these patients.

抄録全体を表示

Two software timers for interbeat interval (IBI) have the same function. One is written in Turbo Pascal 6.0 and the other is in Turbo C++ 1.0. Both run on NEC PC-9801 personal computers without additional hardware, with a resolution of 1-ms. The program is capable of counting up to 65,535-ms. Because IBI data is automatically stored after each heart beat pulse, additional programming can be performed simultaneously. One limitation of these timers is in their recording capacity (approximately 30,000 data) due to inability to access disk drives during measurement.

抄録全体を表示