A study from Siriraj Hospital in Thailand looked at the effect of a 7-day, intensive meditation program for 101 older adolescent male deliquents in the Upekkha Detention Center. All the boys completed the program and answered questionnaires. Seventy percent of the subjects described feelings of contentment and calm, 53 per cent requested the program be repeated, 52 per cent reported a clearer undestanding in the doctrine of Karma, 44 per cent noted improved concentration and awareness, 36 per cent felt less impulsive. All felt that the meditation practice had been beneficial. The report concludes that meditation is a positive adjunctive therapy for institutionalized juvenile delinquents.

The good news: A new survey of the research on music and healing was recently published by Myskja and Lindbaek at the University of Oslo. The bad news: it's in Norwegian. But the English abstract is available in PubMed. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen 2000 Apr 10;120(10):1186-90 draws tentative conclusions about music's efficacy for treating anxiety and depression, and improving function in schizophrenia and autism; its utility for pain, reducing the need for medication aqnd helping during uncomfortable diagnostic procedures; its usefulness as a support tool during pregnancy and gestation, in internal medicine, oncology, paediatrics and other related fields; with geriatric patients, alleviating symptoms in stroke rehabilitation, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia; and its supportive role in palliative medicine and terminal care.

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Researchers at the Department of Psychiatry, Medical University of Ohio in Toledo conducted randomized, controlled clinical trials to determine the effects of biofeedback and relaxation on blood glucose and HbA1c (A1C) in patients with type 2 diabetes. Patients with type 2 diabetes were randomized to either 10 sessions of biofeedback (electromyograph and thermal) and relaxation or 3 sessions of standard patient education. All the sessions were individual. Thirty-nine subjects were entered, and 30 completed the 3-month protocol.

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Researchers from the Department of OBGYN at Texas A&M University Health Sciences Center tested the effects of varying the amount of physical practice vs. mental imagery rehearsal for training medical students to perform basic surgical procedures. Using a sample of 65 second-year medical students, 3 randomized groups received either: (1) 3 sessions of physical practice on suturing a pig's foot; (2) 2 sessions of physical practice and 1 session of mental imagery rehearsal; or (3) 1 session of physical practice and 2 sessions of imagery rehearsal.

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Meta-analysis by investigators at the Department of Women's Anaesthesia of Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, Australia, looked at evidence regarding the effects of hypnosis for pain relief during childbirth.

Medline, Embase, Pubmed, and the Cochrane library 2004.1 were searched for clinical trials where hypnosis during pregnancy and childbirth was compared with a non-hypnosis intervention, no treatment or a placebo. Primary outcome measures were labor analgesia requirements (no analgesia, opiate, or epidural use), and pain scores in labor. Meta-analyses were performed of the included randomized controlled trials (RCTs), assessed as being of "good" or "adequate" quality by a predefined score.

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