Hypnotherapy may ease pain from spinal cord injuries

A new study finds that hypnotherapy can be effective in helping people with recent spinal cord injuries learn coping strategies to combat chronic pain, with nearly 90 percent of study participants reporting they benefited from the treatment.

Now, the psychologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine and her colleagues are planning a larger study that they hope will bring about changes in the treatment of people with pain that is resistant to biomedical treatment.

Hypnosis, once the domain of pocket-watch-wielding variety-show tricksters, appears to have real merit in modern medicine.

“Clinical hypnosis is very different from recreational hypnosis,” says Amy Starosta, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, “Clinical hypnosis focuses on accessing and leveraging the parts of your brain that do things automatically. Your brain does hundreds of things every day, like breathing and blinking.”

Starosta is trying to embed cognitive therapy practices into the brain so that when patients start to feel pain, they can automatically redirect how they experience that sensation.

Starosta said hypnosis has been used for years to treat pain and other conditions, but her study is the first to look at the effects of hypnosis in an inpatient rehabilitation setting, before the chronic pain caused by a recent spinal cord injury emerges.

In her recent study, 71% of 53 participants completed at least three hypnosis sessions. Of those, 88% reported benefit and satisfaction with the treatment. Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Archives.

Acute pain after spinal cord injury is common and can have a detrimental effect on rehabilitation.

“We specifically targeted this population because we know that pain is so common and has a significant impact on their lives,” Starosta says, “If we can give people strategies to manage pain or even prevent pain, we may be able to improve their quality of life from the very start of their rehabilitation.”

After Starosta completes a pilot study showing that the treatment has benefit, she plans to conduct a larger randomized trial. The study will begin recruiting participants this fall and continue over the next three years at Harborview Medical Center. Starosta and her team will look at the effects of the intervention on patients during their hospital stay and after they’re discharged.

The authors also Clinical Medicine Journal Treating ventilated patients who have trouble communicating and relaxing.

“The other thing that was really exciting to us was that this was a very short intervention,” she said. “A lot of the studies and interventions that we see are done in outpatient settings, eight to 12 sessions. Patients have to stay in and establish a way to get that care. We think this is something that can be taught quickly, is easily accessible and is broadly useful.”