Is hypnosis just a trick of stage magicians or hocus pocus for gullible New Agers? Not according to new research just presented at the European Anesthesiology Congress in Amsterdam.

Professor Fabienne Roelants and Dr. Christine Watremez, from the Department of Anesthesiology at the Cliniques Universitaires St. Luc, UCL, in Brussels, Belgium, found, that by using a combination of hypnosis and local anesthesia (LA) for certain types of surgery, patients can avoid general anesthesia. That, the scientists said in a media statement, can aid the healing process, reduce drug use, shorten time spent in the hospital — and it could help cancer patients avoid cancer recurrence and the spread of cancer (metastasis), too.

The research team studied the impact of using LA and hypnosis in certain kinds of breast cancer surgery and in thyroidectomy (removal of all or part of the thyroid gland). “In all of these procedures local anesthesia is feasible but not, on its own, sufficient to ensure patient comfort,” Professor Roelants explained in the press statement.

So what makes local anesthesia work well enough to use for these operations? Adding hypnosis.

For the first study, 18 women out of 78 had hypnosis for a variety of breast cancer surgical procedures including partial mastectomy, sentinel node biopsy (examination of lymph nodes likely to become cancerous from metastasis) and axillary dissection (opening the armpit to examine or remove some or all of the lymph nodes). The remaining women in the group had general anesthesia for the same surgical procedures.

The results showed that the patients who were hypnotized spent a few minutes more in the operating room but their post-operation opioid drug use was greatly reduced. What’s more, they recovered more quickly from their surgery and spent less time in the hospital.

The scientists also compared the outcomes of thyroid surgery in 18 patients who had a combination of LA and hypnosis with outcomes of 36 people who underwent surgery with general anesthesia. In order to decrease the invasiveness of the procedure, both groups had the same type of video-assisted thyroidectomy. The outcome was the same as in the breast cancer surgery — once again, drug use, recovery and hospital stay times were greatly reduced among the patients in the LA/hypnosis group.

“In addition to reducing drug use and hospital stay time, being able to avoid general anesthesia in breast cancer surgery is important because we know that local anesthesia can block the body’s stress response to surgery and could therefore reduce the possible spread of metastases,” Professor Roelants stated.

“There is still a lot of debate around the exact mechanism that allows hypnosis to reduce pain perception,” Professor Roelants said in the media statement. “But what it absolutely clear is that it does so. The result is that one third of thyroidectomies and a quarter of all breast cancer surgery carried out at the UCL hospital are performed under local anesthetic with the patient under hypnosis.”

“We believe that our studies have shown considerable benefits for the LA/hypnosis combination, and that such benefits are not only for patients, but also for healthcare systems. By using hypnosis combined with LA we can reduce the costs involved in longer hospital stays, remove the need for patients to use opioid drugs, and increase their overall comfort and satisfaction levels. To date there are few publications about the use of hypnosis in surgery, and we hope that, by contributing to the body of evidence on its efficacy, our research will encourage others to carry out this procedure to the advantage of all concerned,” Dr. Watremez concluded.

Saturday, June 18, 2011 by: Sherry Baker, Health Sciences Editor.

Recent research conducted on the brain shows that hypnosis gives a person the ability to control the amygdala. The amygdala is a section of the brain that involves emotion, creativity, and memory. Hypnosis promotes mind-body interaction of this area of the brain. These findings have many implications in psychology and medical research.

The amygdala is an almond sized structure in the brain. This structure has a lot to do with a person’s emotional state. Researchers are finding out that the amygdala also interacts with other parts of the brain such as the frontal cortical region and the hippocampus. Currently, researchers are studying a possible link between the amygdala and autism (Black, 2001).

The amygdala, the hippocampus, and the frontal cortical region all play a role on the body. They affect the immune system, the endocrine system, which includes the adrenal and the pituitary glands, which regulate hormones, and the autonomic nervous system that controls heart rate and blood pressure.

Under hypnosis, a person’s amygdala is turned down. A hypnotist or highly trained individual in self-hypnosis can relax the autonomic nervous system by using hypnosis. Turning off the amygdala disables a typical “fight, flight, or freeze” response and stops any emotional triggers that may occur. The good thing about turning off the amygdala is that it allows the body and the body’s immune system time to heal. This is why hypnosis has such a wide range of uses and therapeutic benefits (Frank and Mooney, 2002).

At the 54th Annual Conference of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, in 2003, Stanford researcher Dr. David Spiegel spoke about hypnosis and the brain. He said that although we do not fully understand how hypnosis interacts with the brain, we do know “that hypnosis can be effective in helping people reach into their own unconscious resources to solve problems normally beyond their ability. Not only does it work, but it often succeeds where modern medicine has failed” (Warren, 2009).

Warren explains how hypnosis affects the amygdala. When someone is in a hypnotic trance the amygdala normally shuts itself off. Both the body and the mind are in a deep state of relaxation. All emotions and fears are shut down. The patient is reminded that he or she is in control and not the hypnotherapist. In a state of hypnosis, a person’s unconscious mind will know where to channel the healing power of hypnotic suggestions. This new research gives more insight into the mind-body connection between the brain and hypnosis.
Sources

Black, H. (2001). Amygdala’s inner workings: Researchers gain new insights into this structure’s emotional connections. The Scientist, 15(19), 20.

Frank, D. & Mooney, B. (2003). Hypnosis and counseling in the treatment of chronic illness. New York: Crown House Publishing.

Warren, M.P. (2009). Talking to the amygdala: Expanding the science of hypnosis.

New research indicates that hypnosis may be effective at mitigating stubborn cases of “irritable bowel syndrome,” a catch-all phrase used to describe moderate to severe abdominal pain that doesn’t seem to be caused by something specific.

Several studies since the 1980s have linked “gut-directed” hypnosis to an easing of symptoms in some patients with IBS when other standard treatment has failed, according to HealthNews.com.

The latest study, the results of which were published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, is different from earlier studies in that patients were treated by therapists in their own communities instead of by practitioners at highly specialized medical institutions.

Therefore, researchers said, the findings provide a better idea of how hypnosis might be effective for IBS in the “real world.”

Noticeable improvements in some IBS patients receiving hypnosis

In a pair of studies, scientists randomly assigned 138 patients with IBS that did not respond to traditional treatments to either 12 sessions of hypnosis or to a “control” group. One study, which involved 90 patients, saw 38 percent of hypnosis patients responded to their treatment after three months, meaning symptom “scores” had fallen by at least 25 percent. That compared with just 11 percent of patients in the control group, who were only given advice on diet and relaxation techniques as their treatment.

In the second study involving 48 patients, a quarter of the hypnosis group responded to treatment, while just 13 percent of the control group responded. That difference, said researchers, was not statistically significant, meaning the results could have been due to chance. Still, hypnosis patients did have a larger average drop in symptoms of bloating and pain.

IBS patients suffer from repeated bouts of abdominal cramps and bloating, and alternate between constipation and diarrhea. Regular treatment includes changes in their diets, anti-diarrheal medications and laxatives or fiber supplements for constipation.

Olafur S. Palsson, an associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that for many patients that is enough to bring relief. But for those with IBS that is unresponsive to such standard treatment, psychological therapy – namely hypnosis – has proven to be effective in clinical trials.

“This study shows that hypnosis can work in ‘real life,’ in the community setting, and not only the specialized research setting,” said Palsson, who was not involved in the current study but who researches and uses hypnosis therapy in treating IBS.

Still, the benefits in the most recent study were not as good as those seen in some of the past studies, where as many as 80 percent of patients saw significant improvements in their IBS symptoms after hypnosis therapy.

“The current pair of studies took two approaches: in one, hypnosis patients saw psychologists in private practice who were experienced in hypnotherapy; in the second, hypnosis patients saw one psychologist at a gastroenterology outpatient clinic,” HealthNews.com reported.

Dr. Magnus Simren of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden said it is possible that the best way to receive hypnosis therapy for IBS is as part of an “optimized management” plan in conjunction with traditional medical care.

Simen told Reuters Health in an email that IBS-directed therapy is not widely available in the U.S. and elsewhere. Because of that, at least in part, it is generally only used for patients with the worst cases of IBS that don’t respond to traditional therapy.

Palsson says it makes sense to try standard treatment like dietary adjustments and laxatives first, but if patients don’t respond to such therapies within a few months it might behoove doctors to prescribe some psychological intervention if they exist near where the patient lives.

No one understands exactly why hypnotherapy works for some patients stricken with IBS, Palsson says, but it is thought that hypnosis might change pain sensitivity in the intestines.

Sunday, March 17, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes