MINDFULNESS AS GOOD AS INHALERS FOR ASTHMA

According to a recent US trial study reported in Thorax: An International Journal in Respiratory Medicine, mindfulness training produces clinically significant improvements in quality of life and stress that are equivalent to those seen with inhalers in patients with asthma.

Researchers studied 83 patients who had a physician-documented case of asthma and randomised participants to receive either mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), or a control of a healthy living course.

MBSR featured 8 weekly sessions lasting 2.5 hours each, with one 6-hour session in the sixth week.

At 12 months, those in the intervention group had a clinically significant improvement in asthma-related quality of life compared with the controls, with an increase in scores of 0.72 and 0.06 respectively. Perceived stress scores had also decreased by 4.3 in the intervention group, compared with an increase of 0.2 in the controls.

Study lead Dr Lori Pbert, professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said, ‘From clinical perspective, these findings are comparable to quality of life improvements in trials of widely prescribed asthma medications, including inhaled corticosteroids and an anti-IgE antibody.'

NOTE. Asthma is a serious chronic disease of the lungs. Asthma should be managed pursuant to a physician-approved asthma action plan, with the plan being reviewed at least every 6 months or after a severe asthma attack. For more information on asthma, here is the website of National Asthma Council Australia.

Resource: Thorax online 27 April 2012.

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