ORLANDO — The use of biofeedback to control heart rate variability could be useful in the treatment of older patients with depression, just as it has been beneficial for patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and various cancers.
“Heart rate variability is probably the best marker of health in general, such that if one has good heart rate variability, one is generally healthy. But should someone have any health problems, they can learn to improve their heart rate variability and do better,” said Leon Hyer, Ph.D., in a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America.
In a pilot study of two depressed women aged 55 and 56 years, Dr. Hyer, a professor of psychiatry at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, N.J., found that biofeedback training to improve heart rate variability (HRV) resulted in a significant decrease in depressive symptoms. “This has been shown in young, depressed patients but not in older patients,” he said in an interview.
The two subjects had 10 biofeedback sessions in which they were taught, using audio and video feedback from laptop computers, how to regulate their heart rates and breathe at their resonant frequency. They were encouraged to practice often.
At the end of the 10 sessions, both subjects showed a significant decrease in depressive symptoms. Their baseline scores on the Beck Depression Inventory II were 18 and 21, dropping to 0 for one patient by the study's end. The other patient's score dropped from 21 to 3 by the end of the 4th session, but rose to 11 by the study's end. “Since both medical disorders and mood state have a bidirectionality in their effects, there is a significant advantage in applying a treatment that can improve both,” Dr Hyer said.
Pharmacologic therapy for depression typically has a 60% response rate, but the response is not usually sustained long term. By contrast, biofeedback, combined with cognitive-behavioral training, has been shown to produce sustained responses in other health conditions, he said.