The effect of thermal biofeedback and progressive muscle relaxation training in reducing blood pressure of patients with essential hypertension.

In order to assess the effectiveness of the thermal biofeedback training combined with the progressive muscle relaxation therapy in the treatment of patients with essential hypertension, blood pressure decline was measured on the treatment group who had the combined thermal biofeedback and progressive muscle relaxation training (N = 11), and on the control group who had only the progressive muscle relaxation training (N = 8). Baseline blood pressure was measured four times for two weeks on both groups. For the treatment group, blood pressure was measured twice before and after each of eight sessions of thermal biofeedback training for four weeks. For the control group, blood pressure was measured every two visits to a clinic for progressive muscle relaxation self-training twice before and after the self-training. A significant decline of the systolic blood pressure by 20.6 mmHg and of the diastolic blood pressure by 14.4 mmhg was observed in the treatment group. There was a tendency for both blood pressures to increase in the control group.