First meta-analysis shows promise for yoga, meditation, mindfulness in concussion

Date:
November 30, 2020
Source:
University of Connecticut
Summary:
Chronic concussion symptoms are notoriously difficult to
treat. But a researcher who is also a yoga instructor and has been
teaching yoga for 17 years - is hoping that a recent study, the
first-ever meta-analysis looking at the use of yoga, meditation,
and mindfulness-based interventions for the effective treatment
of chronic concussion symptoms, will offer hope to those still
struggling with their symptoms.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
When Rebecca Acabchuk was studying mild traumatic brain injuries while
working on her doctorate in physiology and neurobiology at UConn, she
met a student athlete who had suffered multiple concussions.


========================================================================== "When I started doing research on concussions, people just started
coming to me," Acabchuk says. "Families at my daughter's school, anytime somebody had a concussion, I would hear about it -- I would hear these
personal stories and all the struggles of people who had concussions and
their symptoms just didn't resolve." So it was for the student athlete,
who told Acabchuk that she would experience seizures when a smoke alarm
went off in her dormitory.

"All of these symptoms she would have to struggle with -- really profound symptoms -- are an invisible injury," says Acabchuk, who earned her PhD
in 2016 and is now a post-doctoral fellow with UConn's Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy, or InCHIP. "People
think you should be better, the injury happened so long ago. Why aren't
you better? And then more frustration comes in when your doctor says
just to rest, there's nothing else that can be done, but you're still
getting headaches or feeling fatigued or depressed." Chronic concussion symptoms are notoriously difficult to treat. But Acabchuk - - who is also
a yoga instructor in Hebron, and has been teaching yoga for 17 years --
is hoping that a recently published InCHIP study, the first-ever meta-
analysis looking at the use of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness-based interventions for the effective treatment of chronic concussion symptoms,
will offer hope to those still struggling with their symptoms. The
study was recently published in the journal Applied Psychology: Health
and Well-being.

"This was really a passion project for me in the sense that it
combines these two areas of interest, concussion work with yoga and meditation," says Acabchuk, who is the study's lead author. "We know
from other studies that yoga and meditation may be helpful for reducing systemic inflammation, and we know that they are helpful for increasing self-compassion and reducing rumination if people are dealing with
symptoms of depression." Most studies looking at the effectiveness of
yoga, meditation, and mindfulness on concussions have been small. For
their meta-analysis, Acabchuk and her team pulled together data from 22 different studies, including both published and unpublished work, that
all together included a total of 539 study participants, and looked at
the impact of the three interventions on outcome categories - - including mental health, physical health, cognitive performance, quality of life,
and social/occupational performance -- and on specific health outcomes,
like depression, attention, anxiety, and fatigue. The team then applied advanced meta-analytical methods to compile and assess the results of
those studies.



==========================================================================
"The main results that we saw were significant reductions in depression
and fatigue," Acabchuk says. "Especially with fatigue, it was a large
effect size, which is impressive in the sense that fatigue is a difficult symptom for patients to deal with." The meta-analysis found that
mind-body interventions consistently provided symptom improvement across
nearly all measured outcomes. The trends were remarkable, the researchers noted, because of the variety of patients enrolled in the studies,
and the known difficulty of relieving chronic concussion symptoms.

Acabchuk says more and larger studies are needed to further investigate
the benefits of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness in concussion treatment plans.

She also says that more study is needed to help researchers and the
general public understand the mechanisms by which these types of
interventions promote healing and reduce concussion symptoms.

But importantly, including some sort of yoga, meditation, or mindfulness practice as part of a treatment plan for a mild traumatic brain injury
appears to involve no adverse effects for the patient, she says --
so there's little downside to giving it a try.

"Think of the brain almost like an ACL -- if you tear your ACL, you're
going to rest it, but you're also going to take steps to rehabilitate it," Acabchuk says. "If you think of the brain in that sense, a concussion
is also like a rehabilitation injury in that, through rehabilitation,
you can strengthen certain pathways in the brain. And we think the tools
to help do that are breath-work, meditation, and mindful movement through
poses from yoga." She continues, "Maybe starting with a meditation app
or online meditation group to learn the basics, and setting aside time
to meditate 10 minutes a day. If you're a person who can't sit still,
maybe yoga is better for you. If you're too tired at the end of the day,
maybe a simple body scan with deep breathing exercises would be better
for you. It's not going to be a miracle cure, but more of something that
can provide benefits over time by incorporating these tools into daily
life. I really do hope that this helps empower people who are struggling
with their symptoms."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Connecticut. Original
written by Jaclyn Severance. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Rebecca L. Acabchuk, Julie M. Brisson, Crystal L. Park, Noah
Babbott‐Bryan, Olivia A. Parmelee, Blair
T. Johnson. Therapeutic Effects of Meditation, Yoga, and
Mindfulness‐Based Interventions for Chronic Symptoms
of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review and
Meta‐Analysis. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being,
2020; DOI: 10.1111/aphw.12244 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201130131439.htm

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