Relaxation response in femoral angiography.

Abstract

Immediately before they underwent femoral angiography, 45 patients were given one of three types of audiotapes: a relaxation response tape recorded for this study, a tape of contemporary instrumental music, or a blank tape. All patients were instructed to listen to their audiotape during the entire angiographic procedure. Each audiotape was played through earphones. Radiologists were not told the group assignment or tape contents. The patients given the audiotape with instructions to elicit the relaxation response (n = 15) experienced significantly less anxiety (P less than .05) and pain (P less than .001) during the procedure, were observed by radiology nurses to exhibit significantly less pain (P less than .001) and anxiety (P less than .001), and requested significantly less fentanyl citrate (P less than .01) and diazepam (P less than .01) than patients given either the music (n = 14) or the blank (n = 16) control audiotapes. Elicitation of the relaxation response is a simple, inexpensive, efficacious, and practical method to reduce pain, anxiety, and medication during femoral angiography and may be useful in other invasive procedures.

Effects of music therapy on anxiety and physiologic parameters in angiography: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Bally et al did not measure dose rates, but found that there were no significant differences in patients receiving extra analgesics (p=0.35) or anxiolytic medication (p=0.30) between groups 18. Finally, Mandle et al reported that there were no differences in fentanyl administration between the music and non-music groups; however, in a third group receiving an intervention of ‘relaxing’ sounds, the use of fentanyl was markedly decreased compared with the other two groups (p<0.01) 27. Of the eight studies that did not report use of sedation or pain medication periprocedurally, four of them made reference to either baseline sedation use or periprocedural medication use as an untested but potentially confounding variable 17 21 23 26…”

Relaxation Techniques for Reducing Pain and Anxiety During Screening Mammography

“…Several studies support the efficacy of relaxation techniques in reducing pain and anxiety during radiologic procedures, including endoscopy, arteriography, and MRI [2][3][4]. Several studies support the efficacy of relaxation techniques in reducing pain and anxiety during radiologic procedures, including endoscopy, arteriography, and MRI [2][3][4].…”

Topographic EEG mapping of the relaxation response

“…The RR is now widely used to treat a wide variety of medical disorders that are caused or exacerbated by sympathetic nervous system arousal, including hypertension (Benson, Rosner, Marzetta, & Klemchuk, 1974), headaches (Benson, Klemchuk, & Graham, 1974), anxiety and pain in patients undergoing stressful medical procedures (Mandle et al, 1990), premenstrual syndrome (Goodale, Domar, & Benson, 1990), insomnia (Jacobs, Benson, & Friedman, 1993), and infertility (Domar, Seibel, & Benson, 1990). Recent reports also indicate a high degree of acceptance and widespread use of the RR among patient populations and also by the medical community (Eisenberg et al, 1993;Friedman, Zuttermeister, & Benson, 1993).…”