A Comparative Study of Relative Effectiveness of Biofeedback and Shavasana (yoga) in Tension Headache*

In recent years, a great amount of interest has been generated by the potential treatment application of biofeedback techniques in vaiious psychosomatic disorders. The possibility of using it in the treatment of tension headache was first advanced by Budzynski et al. (1970). Subsequently various workers demonstrated a similar encouraging result in uncontrolled studies (Wickramasekera, 1972 ; McKenzie et al., 1974 ; Epstein et al., 1976 ; Reeves, 1976 ; Epstein and Abel, 1977). In the first controlled study Budzynski et al. (1973) demonstrated superiority of biofeedback over verbal relaxation procedure. Several attempts have been made to compare the efficacy of EMG biofeedback and verbal relaxation method paiticularly progressive muscular relaxation. While Cox etal. (1975) and Haynes et al. (1975) found the two methods equivalently successful in reducing headache when compared to controls, Kumariah (1980) found that EMG biofeedback combined with progressive muscular relaxation was inferior as compared to EMG biofeedback or progressive muscular relaxation alone in the treatment of tension headache. In tension headache as compared to other key muscles (temporalis, neck muscles, trapezium and frontalis) significantly elevated tension has been observed in frontalis muscle (Phillips, 1977a). Contraction of this muscle has been shown to be related to headache (Dalessio, 1972). Application of EMG biofeedback on frontalis muscle to control its tension has been reported by Budzynski and Stoyva (1969) ; Budzynski et al. (1970); Budzynski et al. (1973) ; Epstein et al. (1974) ; Raskin et ' al. (1973); Wicramasekara (1972, 1973). Phillips (1977) reported the effects of EMG biofeedback on the modification of three com ponents of tension headache (a) muscular tension levels, {b) intensity/frequency of headache and (c) muscular medication frequency.