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VOLUME 22, NUMBER 39
OCTOBER 17,1975
DURHAM, NORTH CAROUNA
Clinical Biofeedback Lab
Established To Relieve Pain
By William Erwin
Day after day for a year, a woman
executive from Charlotte had
headaches. She underwent extensive
testing, but found no relief. Her
temples throbbed; she felt as if a steel
band were tightening around her
skull.
Now, with the help of biofeedback
training, she’s learned how to stop a
headache as soon as it starts.
Relief came so quickly that the
patient “couldn’t believe it,”
according to Dr. Redford B.
Williams, director of the new Clinical
Biofeedback Laboratory here. The
lab opened in September.
At a recent meeting of the
American Psychiatric Association,
Williams reported how the woman
from Charlotte and 15 other patients
responded to biofeedback training.
The patients suffered from anxiety
or headaches. A 51-year-old woman
was afraid of flying; a 32-year-old
secretary became upset whenever her
boss would yell at her; a 27-year-old
woman feared her son would fall
down a flight of stairs.
Biofeedback helped seven of the
patients, Williams said. The
Charlottean learned to relax the taut
scalp and forehead muscles that were
causing her headaches. The
51-year-old can fly now without fear.
The secretary is calmer at work. The
mother was no longer obsessed about
her son’s falling.
With the other nine patients.
Professors Host
Meeting Here
More than two hundred dentists,
social workers, physicians, speech
pathologists, rehabilitation
counselors, nurses, hearing
specialists and other allied health
personnel from the southeastern U.S.
are gathering here today, for the
Seventh Annual Duke Symposium on
Oral-Facial Anomalies.
The day-long event, which is being
held in the hospital Amphitheater
beginning at 9 a.m., will feature
discussions on malformations of the
mouth and face and their treatment.
The symposium is being sponsored
by the divisions of medical speech
pathology, orthodontics and plastic,
maxillofacial-oral surgery. Members
of the Cleft Lip and Palate Team here
and other faculty members from the
sponsoring divisions are on the
program.
Dr. Frank Popovich, professor of
orthodontics and director of the
Burlington Growth Centre at the
University of Toronto in Canada, will
be the special guest lecturer. The
research group he heads is
(Continued on page 2)
biofeedback alone didn’t help. But it
wasn’t a waste of time, Williams said.
In six cases, the technique pointed up
psychiatric problems, some of which
the patients and their doctors weren’t
aware of before.
What is biofeedback? It’s a way a
person can monitor — and learn to
control — certain body functions,
Williams said in an interview.
“Imagine putting a golf ball,” he
said. “After each putt, you adjust
your swing until you get the ball in
the hole. You’ll never learn to putt if
you can’t see whether the ball goes to
the left of the hole or to the right.”
Biofeedback training works much
the same way. Instead of learning
how to putt, a person can learn how
to control his heartbeat or muscle
tension.
A computer in the Duke lab
converts these body functions into a
visual image on a TV-like
oscilloscope screen. If the patient’s
muscles are tense, for instance, an
orange dot bobs to the top of the
screen. If his muscles are loose, the
dot sinks to the bottom of the screen.
By keeping the dot near the
bottom of the screen, the patient can
learn to relax, even though he may
not know exactly what he’s doing.
Eventually, the person learns to
relax even while thinking of the
situation he feJirs, Williams said.
The woman from Charlotte, he
explained, felt anxious at work.
When she envisioned herself in the
office, the tension in her forehead
muscles shot up 88 per cent above
normal. But after biofeedback
sessions, she was able to imagine the
same scene and at the same time
reduce her muscle tension 40 per
cent below normal.
“Her case is not at all untypical,” he
said.
Williams and his research team of
Guillermo Bernal and Matt Jackson
have used biofeedback
experimentally for the past two and a
half years. They’ve treated patients
not only with tension headaches and
anxiety, but also with mild cases of
paralysis.
The paralyzed patients learned to
tense their muscles and strengthen
them by keeping the orange dot near
the top of the screen rather than near
the bottom.
Now that the Biofeedback
Laboratory has opened, the Duke
team will expand its research
program. Studies planned will test
biofeedback against migraine
headaches and lower back pain. In
another experiment, the scientists
will try to modify personality traits
that might bring on hypertension
and heart disease. Williams also will
offer instruction in biofeedback
therapy.
“We want to serve as a resource to
anyone who wants to learn more
about these techniques," he said.
MARKINGS—Dr. Redford B. Williams, director of Duke's new Clinical Biofeedback
Laboratory, and Guillermo Bernal, a clinical fellow in psychiatry, watch wavy lines on
a polygraph machine to see whether a biofeedback patient is learning how to relax.
(Photo by William Erwin)
GREETING CARDS AVAILABLE—As the holiday season approaches, the medical
center library is again offering for sale United Nations Children's Fund greeting cards
in a variety of styles and sizes. Many of the cards were designed by children, and the
painting above is one of them. Boxes of 10 cards, ranging in price from $2.25 to $3, are
available at the library's administrative offices. They may be seen on display in the old
Trent Room which is at the rear of the library. All proceeds from the sale of the cards
and the wall and date book calendars also being sold will go toward UNICEF projects
around the world. These projects are directed toward meeting the nutritional and
medical needs of children in developing countries without regard to race, religion,
sex or politics.