Browse > Home / Archive by category 'Therapies'

Surfing the Net - New e-Therapy

June 28, 2008

The Net has its uses, even in treating patients suffering from psychological disorders, a new study has found. Online psychological treatment, or e-therapy, has been found to be as good as personal therapy in treating panic and panic related symptoms.

 “Mental illness is a growing problem worldwide… and the management of anxiety and depression generally falls to family doctors who may lack the time and resources to deliver appropriate psychological treatment to their patients,” said the study’s co-author Kerrie Shandley.

“So other methods for delivering effective therapy need to be developed,” she added. The study found that when panic disorder sufferers used the e-therapy programme ‘Panic Online’ along with support from a general practitioner, their panic disorder and related symptoms were reduced, with 30 percent losing their symptoms altogether.

The study followed 96 people with a primary diagnosis of panic disorder who completed the ‘Panic Online’ programme over 12 weeks.

Fifty-three of the participants had face-toface assistance from their GP, who had received specialist training in cognitive behavioural therapy, and 43 had assistance from a clinical psychologist via e-mail. The participants completed a phone interview conducted by a psychologist and a series of online questionnaires to assess panic-related symptoms over the course of the treatment and at a sixmonth follow-up. “Both groups were shown to significantly improve over time,” Shandley said.

“There were no noticeable differences between the participants who had assistance from their GP and those who had assistance from a clinical psychologist.”

Written by James · Filed Under Therapies 

Accupressure to make you fresh

June 21, 2008

Your switch can’t always be turned to “On”. But when it isn’t, and needs to be, try a little top to bottom pressure. Stimulating certain acupressure points on your body — starting with the top of your head and moving down to the soles of your feet — is a quick and coffee-free way to jazz yourself up. Here’s how to do the wake-up rubs. Try this acupressure sequence that recently proved very effective in a study.

• Lightly tap the top of your head several times.

• Rub the spot on the back of your head where your skull meets your neck.

• Use a thumb to massage the back of your other hand; rub the fleshy spot where the thumb joins the hand.

• Massage the front of your legs, just below the knee.

• Rub the soles of your feet, just below the ball.

• Rub these points clockwise and then counterclockwise for 3 minutes. After that — presto! — you’re awake.


More Ways to Rev Your Engine

• It’s pretty basic, but get your ZZZs. Sleep loss is a major energy drain. Try to get 6 to 8 hours of sleep a night.

• Brighten up. Bright lights will make you more awake and alert.

• Grab yourself a cuppa — tea, that is as it has mind-grabbing ingredients.

• Find out what’s causing you to drag.

Written by James · Filed Under Therapies 

Benefits of Music Therapy

September 27, 2007

NotesA new study has revealed that music training may be more important for enhancing verbal communication skills than learning phonics. The study conducted by Northwestern University found that music ‘fundamentally shapes sensory circuitry’. “Audiovisual processing was much enhanced in musicians’ brains compared to non-musician counterparts, and musicians also were more sensitive to subtle changes in both speech and music sounds,” said Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology and director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, where the work was performed.

“Our study indicates that the high-level cognitive processing of music affects automatic processing that occurs early in the processing stream and fundamentally shapes sensory circuitry,” she added. The nervous system’s multi-sensory processing begins in the brainstem, an evolutionarily ancient part of the brain previously thought to be relatively unmalleable.

Written by James · Filed Under Therapies