Abstracts

This is a pilot study to evaluate physiologic and potential therapeutic effects of a meditative relaxation technique in patients with complex partial epilepsy., Two patients with a 30 vs. 45 year history of complex partial and generalized seizures practiced meditative relaxation for 30 min per day over 12 months in the context of a behavioral program for seizure control.
Three serial EEGs were obtained during simulated stress and meditative relaxation. In addition to epileptic spikes, changes in breathing and heartrate and tonic EMG were obtained as measures of body tension., At baseline, the patients had 4.2 vs. 2.7 GTC and 6.9 vs. 1.9 CPS seizures on average per month despite optimal medical and surgical epilepsy care. Twelve months after initiation of the behavioral program, patient 1 was seizure free for 8 months and patient 2 had 0.15 GTC and 0 CPS on average per month.
In both patients, body tension measures in the first serial EEG showed poor compliance with the meditative relaxation. In both patients, the second and third serial EEGs showed increased epileptic spikes and decreased body tension during meditative relaxation compared to the simulated stress periods., Meditative relaxation appears to increase epileptic spikes in the EEG but may reduce seizures for patients with complex partial epilepsy in the context of a behavioral program.
It is known that sufficient sleep is essential for maintaining good seizure control, even though sleep temporarily increases epileptic spikes. In similarity to sleep, it is possible that the temporary increase in spikes during meditative relaxation practice may be beneficial to epilepsy patients., (Supported by Medical Research Foundation of Oregon; National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH)