The effect of mind-body exercise on blood pressure in middle-aged and elderly patients with hypertension: A protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Depending on the person, cervical spondylosis may have no clinical symptoms, but cervical spondylosis will definitely cause changes in people's blood pressure, which will further affect physical and mental health. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to explore the effect and safety of mind-body exercise intervention on the blood pressure in middle-aged and elderly patients with hypertension through meta-analysis. METHODS: This meta-analysis searched studies from 4 research databases: the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (from 1979), Web of Science (from 1950), PubMed (from 1965), and Cochrane (from 1991), Date of retrieval: January 22, 2021, Two authors will independently search literature records, scan titles, abstracts, and full texts, collect data, and assess materials for risk of bias. The data will be analyzed by Stata 14.0 software. RESULTS: The present study is a systematic review and meta-analysis program with no results. Data analysis will be completed after the program has been completed. DISCUSSION: This meta-analysis may provide clinical practice with more reliable evidence-based medical evidence that mind-body exercise can benefit the blood pressure of middle-aged and elderly hypertensive patients. INPLASY REGISTRATION NUMBER: INPLASY202130072.

Efficacy of Liu-zi-jue in Patients with 2019 Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (COVID-19): structured summary of a study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVES: Efficacy of conventional treatment plus the complementary therapy Liu-zi-jue (a mind-body exercise) to treat patients with mild COVID-19. TRIAL DESIGN: The study is a single-center 2 arm, randomized controlled trial with parallel-group design.

Self-Reported Effects of Energy Healing: A Prospective Observational Study With Pre-Post Design.

INTRODUCTION: Healing is reported to be used by 16.8% of the population, however utilization may be considerably higher in selected patient groups. The aim of this study was to map the symptoms the participants reported when visiting a healer for the first time, and to evaluate the subjectively experienced benefits and risks from the healing sessions. METHOD: Data were obtained from the Measure Yourself Medical Outcome Profile (MYMOP) questionnaire. One-hundred adults who, for the first time, referred themselves to a healer in southern Norway between January 2016 and January 2017 were included in the study. Eligible for analyses were 92 participants who fulfilled their treatment plan and returned both the baseline (pre) and post-treatment questionnaire. The occurring symptoms were grouped according to their nature into four symptom groups: pain, psychological problems, fatigue and other. With regard to the observational character of the study, all results were described and interpreted descriptively and exact p-values were given and interpreted as measures of effect. RESULTS: The participants who visited the healers in this study were mainly women (80%) with chronic disease (82%), with pain, fatigue and/or psychological problems as main complaints. They experienced an improvement of symptoms, well-being and improved activity level of approximately 50% regardless of the nature of the complaints. Women reported more improvement than men did. The pre-post changes was found after an average of 4.1 treatments. Forty percent of the participants reported adverse effects, which occurred directly after the healing session, generally lasting for less than one day. CONCLUSION: The study participants reported substantial improvement of, and major reduction of the burden of symptoms, improved well-being and activity level after healing sessions. Due to the observational nature of the study, no interpretations about specificity of the descriptive results or the mechanisms of effect can be made.

The Association Between Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Health Status Following Acute Myocardial Infarction.

BACKGROUND: Complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) are commonly used in patients with cardiovascular disease. Although there is lack of evidence regarding the benefit of CAM on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, health-status benefits could justify CAM use. HYPOTHESIS: Adoption of mind-body CAM after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is associated with improved health status, though other forms of CAM are not associated with health-status improvement. METHODS: Patients with AMI from 24 US sites were assessed for CAM use (categorized as mind-body, biological, and manipulative therapies) prior to and 1 year after AMI. Among patients who reported not using CAM prior to their AMI, association of initiating CAM on patients' health status at 1 year after AMI was assessed using Angina Frequency and Quality of Life domains from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire and the Short Form-12 Physical and Mental Component scales. Multivariable regression helped examine association between use of different CAM therapies and health status. RESULTS: Among 1884 patients not using CAM at the time of their AMI, 33% reported initiating ≥1 forms of CAM therapy 1 year following AMI: 62% adopted mind-body therapies, 42% adopted biological therapies, and 15% began using manipulative therapies. In both unadjusted and adjusted analyses, we found no association between different types of CAM use and health-status improvement after AMI. CONCLUSIONS: There was no association between CAM use and health-status recovery after AMI. Until randomized trials suggest otherwise, these findings underscore the importance of focusing on therapies with proven effectiveness after AMI.

The Safety of Yoga: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

As yoga has gained popularity as a therapeutic intervention, its safety has been questioned in the lay press. Thus, this review aimed to systematically assess and meta-analyze the frequency of adverse events in randomized controlled trials of yoga. MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, and IndMED were screened through February 2014. Of 301 identified randomized controlled trials of yoga, 94 (1975-2014; total of 8,430 participants) reported on adverse events. Life-threatening, disabling adverse events or those requiring intensive treatment were defined as serious and all other events as nonserious. No differences in the frequency of intervention-related, nonserious, or serious adverse events and of dropouts due to adverse events were found when comparing yoga with usual care or exercise. Compared with psychological or educational interventions (e.g., health education), more intervention-related adverse events (odds ratio = 4.21, 95% confidence interval: 1.01, 17.67; P = 0.05) and more nonserious adverse events (odds ratio = 7.30, 95% confidence interval: 1.91, 27.92; P < 0.01) occurred in the yoga group; serious adverse events and dropouts due to adverse events were comparable between groups. Findings from this review indicate that yoga appears as safe as usual care and exercise. The adequate reporting of safety data in future randomized trials of yoga is crucial to conclusively judge its safety.

Yoga for essential hypertension: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Yoga is thought to be effective for health conditions. The article aims to assess the current clinical evidence of yoga for Essential hypertension (EH). STRATEGY: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in the Cochrane Library were searched until June, 2013. We included randomized clinical trials testing yoga against conventional therapy, yoga versus no treatment, yoga combined with conventional therapy versus conventional therapy or conventional therapy combined with breath awareness. Study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, and data analyses were conducted according to the Cochrane standards. RESULTS: A total of 6 studies (involving 386 patients) were included. The methodological quality of the included trials was evaluated as generally low. A total of 6 RCTs met all the inclusion criteria. 4 of them compared yoga plus conventional therapy with conventional therapy. 1 RCT described yoga combined with conventional therapy versus conventional therapy combined with breath awareness. 2 RCT tested the effect of yoga versus conventional therapy alone. 1 RCT described yoga compared to no treatment. Only one trial reported adverse events without details, the safety of yoga is still uncertain. CONCLUSIONS: There is some encouraging evidence of yoga for lowering SBP and DBP. However, due to low methodological quality of these identified trials, a definite conclusion about the efficacy and safety of yoga on EH cannot be drawn from this review. Therefore, further thorough investigation, large-scale, proper study designed, randomized trials of yoga for hypertension will be required to justify the effects reported here.

Approaches to difficulties in realerting subjects from hypnosis.

Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of identifying and addressing failures of realerting or dehypnosis. In parallel with the exploration of the adverse consequences of hypnosis in workshop settings, a number of techniques for effecting realerting subjects from hypnosis were collected. Some of these techniques are well-known, some were developed by applying techniques developed for other purposes to the task of realerting, and some were developed by the author when other known techniques proved unsuccessful or were rejected by subjects requiring dehypnosis. This article reports 15 techniques, three of which are foundational and designed to orient the subject to becoming realerted, and 12 more specific approaches to achieving dehypnosis. When appropriate, the particular opportunities of and the potential difficulties and relative contraindications for each technique are discussed.

Association of participation in a mindfulness program with measures of PTSD, depression and quality of life in a veteran sample.

OBJECTIVES: To assess outcomes of veterans who participated in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). DESIGN: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depression, functional status, behavioral activation, experiential avoidance, and mindfulness were assessed at baseline, and 2 and 6 months after enrollment. RESULTS: At 6 months, there were significant improvements in PTSD symptoms (standardized effect size, d = -0.64, p< 0.001); depression (d = -0.70, p<0.001); behavioral activation (d = 0.62, p<0.001); mental component summary score of the Short Form-8 (d = 0.72, p<0.001); acceptance (d = 0.67, p<0.001); and mindfulness (d = 0.78, p<0.001), and 47.7% of veterans had clinically significant improvements in PTSD symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: MBSR shows promise as an intervention for PTSD and warrants further study in randomized controlled trials.

Mindfulness meditation research: issues of participant screening, safety procedures, and researcher training.

Increasing interest in mindfulness meditation (MM) warrants discussion of research safety. Side effects of meditation with possible adverse reactions are reported in the literature. Yet participant screening procedures, research safety guidelines, and standards for researcher training have not been developed and disseminated in the MM field of study. The goal of this paper is to summarize safety concerns of MM practice and offer scholars some practical tools to use in their research. For example, we offer screener schematics aimed at determining the contraindication status of potential research participants. Moreover, we provide information on numerous MM training options. Ours is the first presentation of this type aimed at helping researchers think through the safety and training issues presented herein. Support for our recommendations comes from consulting 17 primary publications and 5 secondary reports/literature reviews of meditation side effects. Mental health consequences were the most frequently reported side effects, followed by physical health then spiritual health consequences. For each of these categories of potential adverse effects, we offer MM researchers methods to assess the relative risks of each as it pertains to their particular research programs.

Meta-analysis of positive effects, side effects and adverse events of holistic mind-body medicine (clinical holistic medicine): experience from Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom and Germany.

UNLABELLED: About 50% of the general population has a chronic disease not cured by biomedicine. OBJECTIVES: Meta-analysis of holistic clinical medicine for which chronic patients were treated and outcomes were, 1) global quality of life, 2) self-rated physical/mental health, quality of life or ability of functioning, or 3) patients felt cured for a specific disease of dysfunction. METHOD: MEDLINE and PsycLNFO and specific journals were searched in January 2009. RESULTS: Eleven clinical studies (18,500 participants) were identified. Positive effects: Quality of life Number Needed to Treat (NNT) = 2, physical health problems NNT = 3, mental health problems NNT = 2, sexual dysfunctions NNT = 2, self esteem NNT = 2, working/studying ability NNT = 2, anorgasmia NNT = 1, other specific sexual dysfunctions NNT = 2. Of 791 patients treated was 617, or 78.0% cured (NNT = 1). Side effects and adverse events: re-traumatization Number Needed to Harm (NNH) > 18,500; brief reactive psychosis (if mentally ill) NNH = 4,625; brief reactive psychosis (if not mentally ill) NNH > 9,250; brief reactive psychosis, all patients NNH = 9,250; depression NNH > 18,500; depersonalization and derealization NNH > 18,500; iatrogenic disturbances NNH > 18,500; minor bone fractures (ribs, hand) NNH = 4,625; serious bone fractures (spine, scull, pelvis) NNH > 18,500; suicides during or less than three month after therapy NNH > 18,500; suicide attempts during or less than three month after therapy NNH > 18,500. Suicide was prevented NNT = 1. Therapeutic value TV = NNH/NNT = 9,250. CONCLUSIONS: Holistic clinical medicine is an efficient complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatment for chronic illnesses and health related problems. Every second patient with physical and mental disorders, sexual dysfunctions, and existential problems were healed. Holistic clinical medicine had no significant side effects or adverse events.

Transcendental meditation: a double-edged sword in epilepsy?

Transcendental Meditation (TM) is derived from ancient yogic teachings. Both short- and long-term physiological correlates of TM practice have been studied. EEG effects include increased alpha, theta, and gamma frequencies and increased coherence and synchrony. Neuronal hypersynchrony is also a cardinal feature of epilepsy, and subjective psychic symptoms, apnea, and myoclonic jerking are characteristic of both epileptic seizures and meditative states. Clinical vignettes have highlighted the potential risk of human kindling from repetitive meditation in persons practicing TM, but clinical studies of similar techniques suggest that meditation may also be a potential antiepileptic therapy. Future clinical studies of meditating subjects using video/EEG monitoring are warranted to determine whether behavioral phenomena have an underlying epileptic basis, and prospective clinical trials of TM in subjects with well-delineated epilepsy syndromes are necessary to establish the safety of this technique and its potential efficacy for seizure reduction and improvement of quality of life.

Mind-body medicine in ambulatory care: an evidence-based assessment.

Ambulatory medicine is a frequent clinical setting where practitioners can effectively apply Mind-body interventions ranging from basic stress management therapies to the sophisticated biomedical instrumentation of clinical biofeedback. Given the rather extensive and growing body of clinical research in this area, the intent of this article is to provide an evidence-based assessment of the evidence underlying the clinical efficiency of such interventions. Such an evidence-based approach can help ambulatory care providers to identify those Mind-body interventions with specific clinical indication so that they can be utilized both safely and effectively in ambulatory medicine.

Mind-body medicine: state of the science, implications for practice.

BACKGROUND: Although emerging evidence during the past several decades suggests that psychosocial factors can directly influence both physiologic function and health outcomes, medicine had failed to move beyond the biomedical model, in part because of lack of exposure to the evidence base supporting the biopsychosocial model. The literature was reviewed to examine the efficacy of representative psychosocial-mind-body interventions, including relaxation, (cognitive) behavioral therapies, meditation, imagery, biofeedback, and hypnosis for several common clinical conditions. METHODS: An electronic search was undertaken of the MEDLINE, PsycLIT, and the Cochrane Library databases and a manual search of the reference sections of relevant articles for related clinical trials and reviews of the literature. Studies examining mind-body interventions for psychological disorders were excluded. Owing to space limitations, studies examining more body-based therapies, such as yoga and tai chi chuan, were also not included. Data were extracted from relevant systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials. RESULTS: Drawing principally from systematic reviews and meta-analyses, there is considerable evidence of efficacy for several mind-body therapies in the treatment of coronary artery disease (eg, cardiac rehabilitation), headaches, insomnia, incontinence, chronic low back pain, disease and treatment-related symptoms of cancer, and improving postsurgical outcomes. We found moderate evidence of efficacy for mind-body therapies in the areas of hypertension and arthritis. Additional research is required to clarify the relative efficacy of different mind-body therapies, factors (such as specific patient characteristics) that might predict more or less successful outcomes, and mechanisms of action. Research is also necessary to examine the cost offsets associated with mind-body therapies. CONCLUSIONS: There is now considerable evidence that an array of mind-body therapies can be used as effective adjuncts to conventional medical treatment for a number of common clinical conditions.