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Beyond Biofeedback – Drs Elmer and Alyce Green

Aman U. Khan (1973) used a …. biofeedback system in the treatment of asthmatic children. He based his strategy on the theory that asthma is originally triggered in many children by allergy and infection, but attacks may be provoked by repeated environmental and emotional stimuli until the child has been conditioned to respond to any number of such stimuli. Khan felt that the best approach would be the use of "counter-conditioning principles."

The child breathes into the biofeedback instrument and tries to turn on the feedback light, which is set to respond at gradually increasing levels of expiratory flow. The light and praise are used as rewards. The first five sessions are designed to "allow the formation of an 'initial link' " between bronchodilation and whatever internal and visceral cues are used to indicate it. During the final ten sessions the "link" is used to help the child overcome experimentally induced bronchoconstriction, induced by a stressful movie, suggestion, or if necessary by medication. Khan follows completion of the training with a schedule of refresher sessions.

Another promising study of biofeedback training for asthma control in children (Kotes et al., 1976) used only EMG feedback for decrease of frontalis muscle activity. Results indicated that such decreases were related to increases in peak expiratory flow.