Psychological treatment of essential hypertension: a controlled comparison of meditation and meditation plus biofeedback.

Twenty-one patients with essential hypertension were randomly allocated to eight 1-hour sessions of meditation training, meditation plus biofeedback-aided relaxation, or a no-treatment control group. Statistically significant falls in systolic and diastolic blood pressure occurred after both training programs, although overall reductions in blood pressure were not significantly greater in either program than in the control group. Meditation plus biofeedback-aided relaxation produced falls in diastolic blood pressure earlier in the training program than did meditation alone. All patients practiced mediation regularly between training sessions: The amount of practice did not correlate with the amount of blood pressure reduction after training. On questionnaire measures of psychological symptoms and personality, sex differences emerged, with females showing significant abnormalities in hostility scores and males showing significantly raised levels of somatopsychic symptoms. In females, outward-directed hostility fell significantly and assertiveness increased after training, but in males, somatopsychic symptoms were unchanged.

Biofeedback treatment of intermittent urinary retention.

The treatment of a 29-year-old woman with intermittent urinary retention using biofeedback is described and discussed in the context of the pathophysiology of reflux urethral instability and related disorders of micturition. During attempts to train the patient to raise the pitch of an auditory biofeedback signal, which varied directly with intrinsic bladder pressure, evidence appeared for the involvement of sensory neuronal pathways in the disorder. This and other evidence are incorporated within an explanatory hypothesis.