Researchers from the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles conducted a 4-week pilot study to determine whether Interactive Guided Imagery could be effective for stress reduction (and therefore reduce the metabolic disease risk associated with obesity and hypercortisolism) in overweight Latino adolescents.

Researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia systematically reviewed results from clinical trials that examined whether cognitive exercises had any inoculative effect against the onset of dementia.

Fifty-four studies were reviewed to identify randomized controlled trials that tested the effect of a discrete cognitive exercise program on neuropsychological performance over time in healthy older adults.

Researchers from Dalian University of Technology in Dalian, China, set out to explore why five days of integrative body-mind training (IBMT)* improves attentional focus and self-regulation better than relaxation training. The underlying mechanisms were sought by measuring physiological and brain changes at rest before, during, and after 5 days of IBMT and relaxation training.

[*IBMT is a meditation practice developed by Dr. Yi-Yuan Tang, a pioneer in studying neurological effects of meditation, by modifying and simplifying Chinese Tao meditation. It doesn’t focus on thoughts in the mind, but rather a state of restful alertness from a high level of body awareness, augmented by the breath and guided imagery with music.] 

During and after training, the IBMT group showed significantly better physiological reactions in heart rate, respiratory amplitude and rate, and skin conductance response (SCR) than the relaxation controls.

Researchers from the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA explored the effects of mindfulness meditation training on selected biological markers of HIV-1 progression.

The study tested the efficacy of an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction meditation program (MBSR), as compared to a 1-day control seminar, to assay CD4+ T lymphocyte counts in stressed HIV infected adults.

A single-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted with enrollment and follow-up occurring between November 2005 and December 2007. A diverse community sample of 48 HIV-1 infected adults was randomized to enter treatment in either an 8-week MBSR or a 1-day control stress reduction education seminar.

Researchers from the University of Washington’s, School of Public Health and Community Medicine reviewed the literature for evidence that massage therapy and mind-body therapies improve quality of life for seriously ill patients at the end of life.  

A systematic review of randomized, controlled trials of massage and mind-body therapies yielded 27 clinical trials testing massage or mind-body interventions. Of these, 26 showed significant improvements in symptoms such as anxiety, emotional distress, comfort, nausea and pain. However, results were often inconsistent across studies, and there were variations in methodology, so it was difficult to judge the clinical significance of the results.

Interested in building upon recent studies showing that imagery helps post-stroke patients relearn daily tasks, researchers from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Kowloon, Hong Kong, China investigated whether imagery could also help with generalizing skills on trained and untrained tasks in new environments in a small, randomized, controlled clinical trial. 

Thirty-five acute post-stroke patients were randomly assigned to an imagery training group (n=18) or conventional functional rehabilitation (n=17) group. The imagery intervention was 3-weeks of standardized practices and daily tasks using chunking-regulation-rehearsal strategies.

Outcome measurements were the performances on trained and untrained tasks in the training and novel environments.

Researchers from the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation in Bangalore, India studied the effect of integrated yoga practice and guided relaxation on both perceived stress and measured autonomic response in healthy pregnant women.

The 122 healthy women in the study were recruited between the 18th and 20th week of pregnancy at prenatal clinics in Bangalore, India, and were randomized to practicing yoga and deep relaxation or standard prenatal exercises 1-hour daily. Forty-five participants in each group completed the study, and were evaluated by repeated measures analysis of variance.

Researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in The Netherlands explored whether self-help could offer an inexpensive and more accessible alternative to face-to-face treatment, comparing non-pharmacological therapies only.

Ten studies with a total of 1000 subjects were included. The self-help style of intervention was found to improve sleep efficiency (d=0.42; p<0.05), sleep onset latency (d=0.29; p<0.05), waking after sleep onset (d=0.44; p<0.05) and sleep quality (d=0.33; p<0.05) but not total sleep time (d=0.02; p>0.05).

Researchers R. Bruce Lydiard, Ph.D., M.D., and Mark Hammer MD from the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston SC , are embarking on some important research that targets sleep disturbance in posttraumatic stress.  Their premise is that the first-line treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder - medication (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and cognitive behavior therapy – do not adequately treat nightmares and insomnia. Nor do they feel that there is sufficient awareness in the mental health community of the critical role sleep disturbance plays in PTSD.

Researchers from the Department of Plastic Surgery of University Medical Center Groningen, in The Netherlands, sought to see whether practicing motor imagery during the immobilization period after flexor tendon injury results in a faster recovery of hand function.

The randomized controlled trial included 28 patients, post-surgery for flexor tendon repair, who were randomly assigned to either an intervention group or a control group.