Recently, studies have shown that Children that use audio tapes that give instructions to guide through mental therapy have almost three times a chance to improve abdominal pain than children who simply use normal medical treatment.
The experiment focused on children with functional abdominal pain. Functional abdominal pain is a chronic pain that has no medical explanation. It can interfere with people's daily activities and other tasks. Additionally, functional abdominal pain is very common, and affects up to 20% of children. Studies prior to this one have shown that guided imagery and behavioral therapy, coupled with regular medical care, can greatly improve their condition. Behavior therapy is a form of psychotherapy used to treat depression, anxiety disorders,
phobias, and other forms of psychopathology. However, behavioral therapy is expensive and time consuming, and the researchers doing this experiment wanted to see if behavioral therapy could be dropped and only the guided imagery is necessary. Guided imagery is a psychotherapy method. It is a therapeutic technique in which a facilitator uses descriptive language intended to psychologically benefit mental imagery.
The study used 34 children (aged 6 to 15) who had functional abdominal pain, and 19 of those children were randomly selected to get guided imagery therapy and normal medical treatment, while the rest of the children acquired only medical treatment. The image therapy consisted of four biweekly 20-minute sections and shorter 10-minute sections. The image therapy used CDs that gave instructions to the children to imagine different scenarios. For example, imagining themselves on clouds and floating gently. The children reported that the CDs were easy and fun to use.
29 children finished the test, 15 in the guided imagery group, and 14 in the only medical care group. 73.3% of the guided imagery group reported that their pain was decreased by at least half or more by the end of the test. On the other hand, only 26.7% of the children in the medical treatment only group said that their pain decreased by half or more. This number increased to 58.3 after the medical treatment only children were giving the imagery therapy. In both groups, 62.5% of the children's pain stayed away for at least six months.
The researchers concluded that the guided imagery and medical care combined gave substantially more benefits then just medical care alone, and that the benefits of the treatment persisted for long periods of time after the treatment is stopped. Functional abdominal pain is very common but affects peoples lives. The treatment including behavior therapy is very expensive. If the behavior therapy is dropped, than the people who can not afford it or who's health care does not cover behavior therapy now know that it is not needed or can be treated without it.
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
A Child's Imagination Can Reduce Abdominal Pain
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Mason, Afemi, and Coda -02
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091012084208.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org
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this was a cool experiment. it could help a lot of children who don't have a lot of money overcome their F.A.P.
ReplyDeleteVery well researched article, I wonder if this is why teachers urge students to be imaginative while they are in pre-K and such. Beyond that, very well written out article and interesting discoveries you found. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteA very interesting topic. It would be interesting if scientists preformed further tests to see if other types of physical (or mental) pain could be reduced, or even eliminated by the sheer power of the human brain!
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