BOSTON — Patients with Cushing’s syndrome recovering from surgery who wear a headband that tracks their brain activity while they meditate may experience less pain and better physical function than those who don’t use the device, suggests a study to be presented at ENDO 2024, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, on Monday in Boston, Massachusetts.
The headband, called MUSE-2, uses electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors to measure brain activity and provide audio biofeedback while a person meditates.
Cushing’s syndrome is a rare endocrine disorder caused by chronic exposure to excess levels of cortisol, a hormone produced naturally by the adrenal glands. Symptoms include muscle weakness and impaired memory and concentration. In women, people may experience increased facial and body hair growth and irregular menstrual periods or stop altogether. There are treatments for the disorder, but if untreated, Cushing’s syndrome can be fatal.
Treatment may include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or the use of cortisol-suppressing medications. Patients who undergo surgery experience glucocorticoid withdrawal syndrome (GWS) after curative surgery. Symptoms of GWS include fatigue, weakness, muscle and joint pain, mood changes, and sleep disorders. Patients often report that recovering from Cushing’s syndrome is temporarily more difficult than living with it.
Dr. Jasmine Saini of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said she wanted to study meditation in patients recovering from surgery to treat Cushing’s disease because meditation has been reported to improve post-operative recovery in patients with other diseases. “Little is known about interventions to help patients with glucocorticoid withdrawal syndrome, so our group is the first to study meditation to enhance post-operative recovery,” she said.
The study included two groups of patients recovering from surgery: the intervention group (27 patients) were provided with a MUSE headband and instructed to meditate for at least 10 minutes per day for three months; the comparison group (81 patients) were not given a headband. Three months after surgery, patients who used the MUSE headband reported significantly improved physical function and bodily pain compared to the comparison group.
“Despite the small sample size and short follow-up period, the results showing improvements in bodily pain and physical function domains in the MUSE cohort are promising,” Saini said. “We hope to study the impact of biofeedback meditation on quality of life with longer follow-up. Preliminary results give us hope that this device could be used to alleviate glucocorticoid withdrawal symptoms.”
This study was supported by Olin Family Gift, Recordati, and Mayo Clinic. The MUSE-2 device was a gift from MUSE, Inc.
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