Talk:Biofeedback/Archive 1

"References"
I hit all those links. They oughtn't be considered references in the commonly accepted use of the term. By and large the urls open articles that show the same rigor cited by apologists for chiropracty, eg.: passing mention to meditation, and the mere observation that there is such a thing as biofeedback. I certainly would expect statistical review, stochastics, etc. I suspect those touting this treatment modality, and the contributors to this article, are somehow involved with it for their livlihood.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.149.167.137 (talk) 17:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, most of these are not references in the scientific sense. I have added the reference to the Miller study, most of the others need to be looked at and possibly removed. Lord Spring Onion (talk) 12:55, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

New subsection for Pain/section on uses of biofeedback
Biofeedback is used extensively and effectively to treat chronic pain, a very common condition, and this deserves some references and citations given the relevance of these other subsections, imo. Brickc1 22:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this article would benefit from a whole section on 'uses', which could include subsections on pain, stress management, possible the art section, and any other use that has been investigated and is not pure speculation.

As it stands, the article very much focusses on the techniques, and misses out most of the potential uses. This would also help to redress the balance in terms of the focus on medical uses, discussed below, as people could add any uses they know about. Lord Spring Onion (talk) 13:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

please update
Very interesting subject, but that page would need a bir of work :

From the article : " ... as temperature and blood pressure are strongly correlated ..." : seems to be wrong blood pressure change a lot, simple to double or more, when temperature got very small variations, and anything outside is often lethal (already tried a 50 degC blood temperature :-) only a few % above 37 average if we measure it from absolute zero, which should be done, because 0 degC, melting water is an arbitrary reference!)

cure Epilepsy with bio/neuro-feedback
The possibility to cure epilepsy with bio/neuro-feedback is extremely interesting, because it looks like many successes have been achieved in this direction and it looks also very promising because of the next points : (1) what best that adjacent neurons to control disfunctionning one! They are nearby, work on the same scale etc. (2) looks like many people don't have any interest of these techniques to be applied efficiently, especially the chemical industry, because they earn much more on life medication than on cures, especially if these cures are not within their field! (3) something terrible with some industries : the sicker their customers are the wealthier they become! The perfect starting point for social catastrophy!

needs thorough rework ...
this looks like an unsubstanstiated load, maybe it should be deleted?
 * Biofeedback is real. Just the page needs thorough rework by someone knowledgeable. Pavel Vozenilek 17:49, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Check out the external What is Biofeedback Link, it's very well written, and unbiased.
 * None of the links at the page right now are what I would consider unbiased. One is a FAQ from people who sell products related to biofeedback, the other one is a yahoogroup. I would like to see an unbiased link here, though, to give some kind of idea of what to do with this page. I would like to see a separation of the description of what it is and what you can use it for, for instance.

24.164.109.30 edits/deletion
I'm wondering why 24.164.109.30's recent edit deleted so much stuff? He describes this as "cleaned up and extensively revised", and indeed he has added a lot of new text that seems pretty good, but large chunks of the old article that contained useful information are completely gone. Perhaps that stuff just needs to be sourced properly? ObsidianOrder 08:08, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * What is the point of editing a piece if the result is criticised because it is different ? Or written by someone who >might< not be unbiased ?
 * What does 'sourced properly' mean, please ?


 * I could write a piece which retained the good material and cut the erroneous material and added useful references, e.g. to the web site of the professional body for the field, http://www.aapb.org.


 * I have been writing about Biofeedback for more than 30 years but am new to Wikipedia and unsure what to do. --Oct 13 Laurence3


 * Welcome, Laurence3. The 3 Wikipedia editorial policies are neutral point of view, cite your sources, and no original research.  Ideally, any sentence that might be questioned by readers or other editors will have an in-line citation, such as a footnote or a citation in the form of: (Smith, 2002).  Also, you can sign your user name at the end of your post by typing four "~"s --Nectar T 22:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

NPOV tag
I put in NPOV tag since the old content (pretty lousy but at least it tried to describe the thing) got replaced by argument of opponents of the technology (here, by an anon attempting the same this months ago). While this is perfectly valid information (the fact that biofeedback is controversial is quite acknowledged) people coming here may be also interested in details of what it is, not just being pushed it is pseudoscience. Pavel Vozenilek 04:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


 * See also "24.164.109.30 edits/deletion" above (the same author). Pavel Vozenilek 04:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Hi Pavel. I rewrote it and took off the NPOV tag:  it's still kind of weak, though -- I wish we could get some editors working on it who are more knowledgeable about biofeedback.  As far as the previous criticism section went, I took it out because most of it was insubstantiated, misleading, or irrelevant.  The old article said that "the original biofeedback studies were never replicated" -- I'm not certain which studies they mean, but there has been a lot of research into biofeedback since the 1960s and it has been proven to be a decent treatment modality for some illnesses.  If the person who wrote that wants to check, they can look biofeedback up in an academic database.  If, as the editor wrote, "Miller himself wrote an article calling into question the results of those previous articles", it would be good to see a link.  DiCara's divorce and suicide are irrelevant to an encyclopedia article about biofeedback.

The old article said "Although the practitioners of biofeedback have claimed that their positive results are a function of the specific techniques that they employ, it is not clear that biofeedback leads to any stonger results than those that can be acheived by more general techniques such as relaxation training and meditation or self-hypnosis." This is false. In some fields where it has been studied, for instance incontinence therapy and treatment of ADHD, neither relaxation training nor hypnosis nor meditation could reasonably be expected to have similar results.

"There have been connections between the practice of biofeedback and practioners of neurolinguistic feedback/programming training as well as those who provide feedback for cortical EEG averaging and other techniques. None of these procedures have been shown to be effective in randomized clinical trials." I'm sure some people are interested in both biofeedback and NLP but that doesn't make the shared interest encyclopedic. I don't see a strong connection between the two -- NLP is some kind of psychological technique used, I believe, primarily by businessmen to attempt to convince people of things and attain social success, while biofeedback is the use of technology to provide a person with information about their bodily processes in order to improve physical well-being :P

The main criticism of biofeedback that I can find on reasonable, medical webpages is that it has not been studied enough.Katsam 07:42, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Clinician reports of beneficial side effects?
A recent change under the new section heading "Side effects of biofeedback" said various benefits were "reported by ... clinicians". The source it cites does not specifically name any physicians who reported those benefits, so for now I reworded it to "attested by supporters of biofeedback". That may still not be the right wording, but it's better. The Rod 18:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Re Criticisms
I moved the following post from 144.137.200.212 from the article page to here here because it discusses the article itself, lacks an encyclopedic tone, and comes across as original research:
 * Re the "CRITICISMS" section. I'm Victor Barnes PhD, an Australian psychologist (http://www.PsychologyNatural.com) and have been making use of biofeedback since 1976. Biofeedback is not something done INSTEAD of teaching relaxation and self-hypnosis, it is indeed a tool for doing just that - teaching relaxation and self hypnosis! It's very useful too for convincing people of the realness of the link between mind/emotion and body. I "hookup" a pair of the client's fingers to a GSR (galvanic skin response) machine and tell the clients to close eyes and relax. When the sound coming from the GSR machine's speaker settles down to a more or less stable condition I then warn clients that I'm going to pinch the back of their hand and that it is going to hurt them. But I don't do it. Within about a second of the warning the speaker starts to scream at a higher pitch as the machine responds to the client's slightly rising anxiety even though I haven't touched their hand. As a general note: I find the simple GSR machine, which is cheap and easy to use, the most useful and most of what can be achieved in therapeutic psychology with other modalities (EEG, EMG etc.) can be achieved with much less fuss using the GSR. Most research seems to be with EEG and EMG which involve expensive machines and much messing around getting the electrodes attached to the client "just right". I believe the EMG (muscle)feedback has great potential for physiotherapy but the physiotherapists don't seem to have "picked up" on it.


 * AN EXAMPLE OF EMG USE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY: A teenage boy with a severe facial tick (involuntary twitch of the face) was brought to me by his father for treatment. It didn't take me long to ascertain there was a strange relationship between the son and his father who had a dogmatic and aggressive demeanour. The boy was intimidated by him evidenced by the fact that the tick occurred less often when the father wasn't present. I attached EMG electrodes to the boy's jaw and facial muscles. The idea was that slight nerve impulses tending to cause a muscle spasm would be detected by the machine before they got strong enough to cause the spasm. The boy would be alerted to the rising tension by the sound of the machine and would learn to inhibit the impulse by consciously relaxing using the mental devices I taught him. It worked. After 3 1-hour sessions the lad could go an hour without a facial twitch and without the benefit of the machine's feedback. However, outside the clinic situation, being exposed to his father, he relapsed. #

Note: the above paragraphs have some information that should be incorporated into the article, as they reveal an apparently common use for Biofeedback. The Rod 00:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Massive changes by User:63.119.156.133 - plan revert it
User:63.119.156.133 had changed the article significantly on May 5th:. The visual style is really better now but lot of information has been removed (e.g. the positive effects, links) and the introductory section suggests the technique is something akin Scientology.

I have a feeling the change came from a warrior, with history of unexplained deleting and with no prior involvement in the topic.

I ask someone take a look and improve the previous version, otherwise I'll mechanically revert the content back (preserving subsequent change). A version written by User:Katsam on Dec 27 could be taken as balanced and qualified, IMHO.

TIA Pavel Vozenilek 18:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * No, that is far too early a version. A lot of things have changed since then. In particular I removed a number of the links are they were either not valid, or just plain bad in my opinion. Do feel free to undo the changes by 63.119.156.113 however. Mrjeff 20:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Neutral biological term?
Isn't there a neutral biological/neurological term biofeedback, that just describes a mechanism for keeping a continuous meta-stable system within a certain state interval, such as: a mammal shivering when cold will cause the mammal's body to keep up the temperature to within a certain interval? Said: Rursus ☻ 20:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Why aren’t common non-alternative biofeedback systems covered in this article? See above. example: cars, typing, fishing.Oobyduby (talk) 20:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Rursus, perhaps you are looking for homeostasis. Phizq (talk) 10:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Modification_in_head_psychology
< CliffC -> asked for some charifications in newest paragraph added. I'm not sure this paragraph belongs in the lead but I'll leave that to the experts. I hope this isn't a setup for some new external links. >

Hello, - I write this because this article is only on the medical aspect of the biofeeback, not on this aspect in psychology and relaxation. - Indeed, my chapter and the precedent should rather be put in a chapter style Application use -it is not for new link. I dont write new. -The chapter critiscism look amazing. May be writen by doctor, not by psychologist.

Paul *Biofeedback


 * Paul, I'm sure your English is much better than my French, but the paragraph as it stands, "The use outside the scope medical specifically to be used in psychology in learning the Relaxation against stress. Jacobson's Progressive Muscle Relaxation; Autogenic training. The technique widely used in this context is the EMG biofeedback. Jacobson had developed a device the 'electro-neuro-gramme' or 'electroneuromyometre' for measuring electrical muscle tension, the ancestor of EMG biofeedback. The high price of these devices have hampered its use. But the integration of electronic circuits with bioamplifier and declining cost of computer have given a new impusion to this technique."
 * interrupts the flow of the introduction, is not clear English and does not make much sense to me, although that may be because I am not an expert in the subject. The use of French terms and "impusion", which I cannot find in the dictionary, does not help readability.  I suggest removing the paragraph until an English-speaking expert in the subject can pick it up from the above quote and rewrite it, and perhaps recommend a better location for it in the article than in the WP:LEAD.  Meanwhile, I will add an  tag immediately above the paragraph, to perhaps attract the attention of an expert in  the subject.  If anyone else has thoughts on this, please ring in.  --CliffC (talk) 01:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I made a section with the Field of use. I used french terms, as they are described in the book of Jacobson, but there are only used in his book and I have not found translation. Paul 7 December 2007

Biofeedback arrived a decade ago in France and it did not work because of its excessive price, > $ 3000. For the low price of the equipment, I put links to a Opensource and university projects.

There is a resurgence of activity now with this price reduction, without duplicating fashion "New Age" biofeddback "Alpha". Paul 7 December 2007

Biofeedback, commercial link
My link is not a commercial link http://openemg.free.fr Paul 31 December 2007

Biofeedback, field of use
Why remove the psychology field? This article is false. Biofeedback is beyond the field of medicine and is used in psychology and relaxation. But the only limit to the medical field, saying that it does not, is a nonsense and is quite curious .. Paul 01 jan 2008


 * The user probably removed the section simply because it is written in poor English and cannot be understood, not because of any disagreement with whatever it is trying to say. The section has been sitting unimproved for several weeks even though it has a 'needs expert attention' tag and several 'clarify' tags. In Wikipedia, tagged sections get removed when the tags are not answered after a reasonable time.  I support the section's removal and have removed it again. Please see my 7 December comments above, I know English is not your first language, so I suggest that you post any rewrite here on the talk page first and ask for improvements.  --CliffC (talk) 17:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Category
I added the category Psychotherapy which is a significant usage of biofeedback. I am more critical on the category "Devices to alter consciousness" Paul 01 jan 2008

Notes and references
Neither mention of this association. "The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB)" http://www.aapb.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1 But who wrote this article? Paul 01 jan 2008

Expert
ALL this article need an expert. The introduction is false. Some notes and references are false. Paul 02 jan 2008

It seems like this page needs a lot more than an expert, it needs somebody with very much excess time and a little knowledge. I'll be working on this page from a textbook, but finding the same experiments published online is a bit harder to do. BMello1618 (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Military service graf
The section on the use of biofeedback in military service is a real mess. I fixed a couple of misspellings and easy things. But beginning on "It is said.." is an obvious problem- said by who - give a reference. There needs to be a citation, or the section should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.55.62 (talk) 18:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Read the Alternative Medicine Article
Either biofeedback is alternative medicine or it "has been widely studied and is currently accepted as a treatment for incontinence disorders." The two of these cannot both be true since the alternative medicine article defines alternative medicine as a treatment "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine." If biofeedback is an accepted treatment for anything then it is medicine, not alternative medicine. This article (or the alternative medicine article) needs to changed to reflect this. These two articles are flatly contradictory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.190.139.151 (talk) 06:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Efficacy Section
I feel the need for this language: What in the SAM HELL is the "efficacy" section got to do with? It's just completely irrelevant to the rest of the page. HOW has biofeedback been judged by the efficacy criteria? If it hasn't WHAT IS THE POINT IN THIS SECTION????!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peanutaxis (talk • contribs) 08:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Cluster headache
According to the article on cluster headache, it does not respond to biofeedback treatment even though it is listed here. Phizq (talk) 10:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The citation given for the claim about cluster headache is Yucha & Gilbert, Evidence-Based Practice. This work does not mention cluster headaches. It discusses only 'tension, migraine, or mixed' (p. 23). I have put a Fact marker next to this claim, as an additional citation should be provided or the claim about cluster headache should be removed. Happydemic (talk) 12:10, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Crap game?
Psycho Dice is described as a "psycho kinetic crap game". While this statement may well be true it is not very encyclopedic. Phizq (talk) 10:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Medical Biofeedback
This entry is wholy restricted to "non-medical" applications of biofeeback, giving the impression that biofeedback is solely an alternative therapy. Biofeedback is used heavily in movement science, sports training, human performance and clinical rehabilitation for neuromuscular disorders. It has routine clinical use in some aspects of rehabilitation medicine, recommended by the Royal Colleges. It is not helpful to the medical community or for patients for mis-information to be disseminated by wikipedia in this way. Please amend it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.44.122.40 (talk) 08:20, 8 October 2009 (UTC)