Recurrent abdominal pain affects 10 to 20 percent of all school-aged children, Dr. Ball says. "Five to 10 percent of these children may have an underlying organic reason for the pain, but for the remaining children, the origin of the pain often remains unexplained, though the symptoms persist. Not only are these children in pain, they are missing school, making frequent doctor visits and may suffer from anxiety and depression."
Dr. Ball and his colleagues at the UA Steele Memorial Children's Research Center studied a novel approach to treating children with recurrent abdominal pain—the use of guided imagery therapy. Guided imagery is a technique that combines aspects of relaxation, imagery and hypnosis. Previous studies have shown its efficacy in treating other childhood pain syndromes, but this is the first one to use it for children with recurrent abdominal pain.
Children who were in the intervention portion of the study attended four 50-minute sessions with a therapist to learn deep abdominal breathing techniques and then guided imagery. The children created a mental image of what the pain looked like and another image of something that would end the pain. The children were asked to practice guided imagery twice a day for a month. In addition, the children (or their parents) kept pain diaries to record episodes and severity of abdominal pain.
Overall, the children in the study demonstrated significant improvement after receiving guided imagery training. During the first month, while the children were learning guided imagery, the average number of days they experienced abdominal pain decreased by 36 percent. The children continued to improve the second month of the study.
The average number of days the children experienced pain decreased by 67 percent during the two-month study period.
"This was a small pilot study," Dr. Ball says, "with only 11 children involved in the treatment group. However, the dramatic decrease in the kids' abdominal pain clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of using mind-body techniques with children. Additionally, these were children who had suffered for months or even years with abdominal pain that did not respond to conventional therapies. We believe that teaching children guided imagery to control abdominal pain is a safe, effective and empowering therapy."
The results of the pilot study also gave Dr. Ball and his colleagues the data they needed to conduct a larger study using the same techniques. Other study authors include Daniel Shapiro, PhD, UA Department of Psychiatry, Cynthia Monheim, MA, UA Department of Psychiatry, and Joy Weydert, MD, a fellow in the UA Program in Integrative Medicine and a member of the UA Children's Research Center.
Dr. Ball's study was funded by the National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health.
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