Biofeedback

At a basketball training field a young man is standing at the white line ready to throw the ball into the basket. It is his first day to start learning how to throw the ball in the ring. At the signal from the coach he throws the ball. The ball goes over the board. The young man notices his error. The next throw is little better than before. The ball hits the board. He adjusts his hand and arm movements and the force of the arm he is using in throwing the ball and thereby gradually improves and finally succeeds. The player is adjusting his movements depending upon the feedback he is receiving through his eyes together with instructions from the coach. We adjust our physical movements and mental planning in our daily activities according to the feedback we receive from external environment through our sense organs.

In the case of biofeedback, the information is not about our external activities or movements. Instead, the information that we receive is about physiological and psychological changes that occur inside our body. It has been found that, just like feedback from external sources, information regarding internal physiological changes help a person acquire the skill to control and regulate his internal physiological activities such as blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, muscular tension and brain waves. These changes are reflected back to the person through electrical devices using visual or auditory signals and the person is required to control and regulate the digital or analogue meter or to lower or increase the volume of auditory signal and thereby learn to regulate his involuntary physiological activities. Today, Biofeedback is used to measure and regulate heart rate, blood pressure, brain waves, skin temperature, breathing and muscle tension.

The work on Biofeedback was started in the sixties and picked up momentum in the seventies. I read my first article on biofeedback in 1973 in a journal. I got very much interested in this area and started looking for an opening to enter into such a study. I joined a team of researchers at Research Institute of Clinical Psychology, Tokyo University of Education, Japan. I worked with a young Japanese male, Mr. Kim, who had ‘writer’s cramp’. He was unable to write the moment he picked up a pen or pencil. Kim’s fingers would become tense and he would lose his grip on the pen. As a result of his disability he lost his job.

I used a biofeedback instrument called ‘electromyograph’. It was a small cubical box with an analogue meter that showed the muscle tension and it also produced a crackling beep sound that gained momentum as the muscle tension increased. There was a set of electrodes which I placed on the dorsal (back) side of Kim’s hand he used for writing. The electrodes, connected with the device, picked up the electrical waves associated with the activity of skeletal muscles of the hand which were then displayed on the device through the analogue meter and also as a beep sound.

Kim, seated in a comfortable chair very calm and peaceful room, was instructed to relax while watching the analogue meter. The goal was to bring the needle as much down to the decreasing numerical values as possible. He was also required to keep the beeps’ frequency slower. The task was difficult initially but Kim gradually learned how to relax his hand muscles. Once he gained control over the movements of his hands, he was slowly and gradually given training to hold a pen or pencil while keeping the muscles of his hand relaxed, which were monitored through the biofeedback instrument. Once he gained confidence, he was asked to write pleasant and easy words. He stopped writing the moment there was very high tension. Finally he learnt how to write without any stiffness in his hand and fingers. His grip on his pen became firm and gradually he grew out of the fear of writing. It is worth mentioning that with Kim the electromyography biofeedback instrument was not only used to control and regulate his hand muscle tension but also the overall tension of his body and mind. In separate relaxation training sessions the electrodes were placed on Kim’s forehead and his task was to lower the intensity of auditory and visual feedback he received through the biofeedback device. The forehead muscles are a very good indicator of overall tension in a person’s body.

It must be noted that Biofeedback was used as a tool or technique of the overall plan of Behavior Therapy in this particular case. Even these days biofeedback is used as a supportive technique of psychotherapy. The technique has been found to be very effective in overcoming several psychological and physiological problems.

Biofeedback has been used very effectively in controlling skin temperature in different areas of body. It is a known fact that the blood circulation increases in the brain areas during tense and stressful emotional states. In such situations the distal parts of body that receive comparatively decreased pressure of blood circulation become colder. This is usually the case with people suffering migraine attack. The skin temperature controlling device can be used to train the person to increase temperature of hands and feet. Migraine pain decreases in severity as the blood flow pressure diverts from the brain areas towards distal body parts.

A new branch of Biofeedback Therapy has come out which is known as Neurofeedback. It is the same thing as biofeedback but it deals particularly with brain wave control. The electrical changes produced by the brain have been categorized into different wave-lengths: Alpha(7.5-14 Hz), Beta(14-40 Hz), Theta(4-7-5 Hz) and Delta(0.5-4 Hz). When we are fully conscious, we are in beta brain wave state.  The more we are stressed, the higher will be the Beta frequency. Alpha brainwaves are the state of relaxation, visualization and imagination. Theta and delta are the states of deep meditation or sleep. With the help of neurofeedback instrument, one can learn to regulate brain wave states very easily. There is a long list of disorders and behavioral problems for the treatment of which Biofeedback has shown fairly promising results.

Mumtaz Shah