U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Position to Biofeedback

Biofeedback is Mind-Body Control practice. There is already a growing amount of evidence that many of the mind-body therapies can be clinically as well as economically cost-effective, that they work, and that they are safe.

Biofeedback is used to treat a very wide variety of conditions and diseases:

• Stress
• Sleep disorders
• Migraine Headaches, Tension Headaches, and many other types of Pain
• Epilepsy
• Alcohol and other Addictions
• Variety of Vascular disorders:
• High blood pressure and its opposite, low blood pressure
• Cardiac arrhythmias (abnormalities, sometimes dangerous, in the rhythm of the heartbeat)
• Raynaud's disease (a circulatory disorder that causes uncomfortably cold hands)
• Respiratory problems
• Disorders of the digestive system
• Fecal and Urinary Incontinence
Muscle spasms
• Muscle dysfunction caused by injury
• Paralysis and other movement disorders

Clinical biofeedback techniques that grew out of the early laboratory procedures are now widely used to treat an ever-lengthening list of conditions. More applications are being developed yearly.

Sources:

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: WHAT IS BIOFEEDBACK? DHHS Publication No. (ADM) 83-1273 (Printed 1983)
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - National Center of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine: http://nccam.nih.gov/nccam/