Electromyography in biofeedback.

The data for clinical applications of biofeedback is becoming too extensive to review, and be comprehensive. Therefore the need arises to narrow the data into smaller groupings. Furthermore, the information is being developed quickly, thus it is important to review the literature often. This paper reviews the evidence on electromyographic in its clinical applications. The evidence indicates DIG biofeedback to be effective in a variety of disorders such as, muscular contraction headache, stuttering, chronic pain, conversion reaction, cerebral palsy and others. The research, however, was not without its problems and these issues are discussed.Biofeedback has been described by many as a new panacea able to cure a multifarious number of disorders. Although it is true that biofeedback does work well on certain disorders, it has not been proven effective with others.Biofeedback has many different forms of feedback approaches such as electrocardiogram, electromyogram, electroencephalogram, electrogastrogram, galvanic skin response, and thermal training. The amount of data being developed in each of these areas of biofeedback has become very extensive. Thus the need arises to narrow the information into more specific groups. Previous reviews of the evidence have attempted to overview the whole area of clinical biofeedback (Blanchard and Young 1974; Blanchard and Epstein 1977). This it is becoming more difficult to do in a thorough manner, with the increasing amount of data. Thus this study reviews the literature on FN G biofeedback and its clinical applications. There are three reasons why BIG feedback was chosen for the review instead of another feedback modality: (1) LNG feedback has perhaps the greatest number of studies (2) the data indicates BIG feedback to be some of the most consistant in biofeedback, (3) EMG feedback has some of the most clinically useful applications (Blanchard and Young 1974; Blanchard and Epstein 1977).Because of the increasing amount of data, it is important to review the evidence often. The last review was done in 1977 by Blanchard and Epstein in a complete analysis of clinical biofeedback applications. Therefore, it is important to discuss the great number of new reports. The purpose is to describe what studies have taken place, critique the reports, scrutinize the data and make hypotheses about the information. This study provides a comprehensive review_ of the clinical applications of EMG biofeedback in areas of psychology, physiology, medicine, education, and physical therapy. Data are not included from the dental applications. Blanchard and Epstein have suggested that clinical approaches be divided into two main categories. The first is muscle regulation which is EMG used as a mediator or secondary approach to target disorders, such as muscular contraction activity feedback to treat headache. The second is muscle reeducation which deals with EMG feedback in the treatment of physiological dysfunctioning muscular activity.Thesis (M.A.