Hi all,

It was a great pleasure to read the following article recently. Hypnosis is becoming more widely used with each day that passes! Great for us all. Enjoy ...

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Cause Of Children's Seizures Pinpointed By Hypnosis
Article Date: 17 Feb 2008 - 10:00 PST

http://www.medicaln ewstoday. com/articles/ 97483.php

It was no way for an 11-year-old to live. For a month the boy had
endured daily episodes of uncontrollable jerking and foaming at the
mouth, and his physicians at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at
Stanford were concerned that the boy had epilepsy. Before starting the
boy on a lifetime of anti-seizure medications, though, they turned to an
unconventional diagnostic tool: hypnosis.

"Children are highly suggestible and they have great imaginations, " said
Packard Children's child psychiatrist Richard Shaw, MD. "We've found
that if we suggest that they are going to have one of their events while
they are in a hypnotic trance, they will usually have one."

But wait. Aren't physicians supposed to try to STOP seizures rather than
searching for new ways to cause them? In a word, yes. But in order to
treat seizures effectively, doctors must learn which parts of the brain
are causing the trouble. Many children who seem to be having epileptic
seizures are actually having an involuntary physical reaction to
psychological stress in their lives. These events require a vastly
different treatment than do true epileptic seizures.

The only way to pinpoint the true cause is to monitor the child's brain
activity during an event. Connecting a panel of electrodes to a child's
scalp is relatively easy and painless. Conducting a "seizure watch" of
indefinite length is another matter.

"It's very difficult for parents to spend three or four days in the
hospital hoping their child has a seizure," said Packard Children's
chief of pediatric neurology, Donald Olson, MD. "It puts them in a very
uncomfortable place emotionally. " Furthermore, some hospitalized
children, removed from the very stressors that may be causing the
events, never have a seizurelike event.

Hypnosis can speed the process considerably, say Shaw and Olson.
Together with former medical student Neva Howard, they tested the
procedure on nine children between the ages of 8 to 16 whose seizurelike
events included twitching, loss of consciousness, shaking, jerking and
falling. Their results were published online in Epilepsy & Behavior. The
physicians needed to know whether these were true epileptic events,
which are best treated by medication, or non-epileptic events caused by
psychological stress or other neurological problems.

"We can't always distinguish epileptic from non-epileptic events
visually, or through descriptions by family or friends," said Olson, an
associate professor of neurology, of neurosurgery and of pediatrics at
the Stanford University School of Medicine. "But regardless of the
cause, these are disabling, life-altering events that need to be treated."

The authors believe that, although hypnosis may not work for every
child, the technique is an important tool that can speed proper
diagnosis and treatment for children suffering from seizurelike events.

To hypnotize the subjects, Shaw, an associate professor of psychiatry
and behavioral sciences and of pediatrics at the School of Medicine,
first used a combination of deep breathing and progressive muscle
relaxation to induce a state of relaxation and deep focused attention in
the subjects. He then used a combination of imagery and suggestion to
induce one of their typical seizurelike events. Children typically
visualize being at one of their favorite places - for one teen, it was
on a beach in the Bahamas. After a hypnotic trance was established, Shaw
would then direct the child to recall the feelings or events that
usually precede a typical seizure. Electrodes on the child's scalp
recorded their brain activity during the session.

In eight out of nine cases, Shaw could successfully trigger a
seizurelike event with this procedure. After an appropriate monitoring
interval, Shaw then directed the hypnotized child to "return" to his or
her favorite place and the episode would stop. Using this technique, the
physicians found that all eight of the subjects were experiencing
non-epileptic events.

"We had a number of clues that these particular children might not have
epilepsy," said Olson, "but hypnosis helped us confirm our suspicions."
Physicians begin to suspect causes other than epilepsy if an individual
has a variety of episodes, if the person's cognition is unaffected
despite frequent seizures or if the person has a pre-existing
psychiatric diagnosis.

Were the kids in the study relieved to find they didn't have epilepsy?
"Yes and no," said Shaw. "It's important to explain very clearly that
although these events are psychologically based, they are completely out
of a child's control." He and Olson compare the events, which are a type
of condition called conversion disorder, to other well-known ways that
stress and emotions affect other bodily functions, such as migraines,
ulcers and blushing.

Stanford is part of an ongoing multicenter study of these non-epileptic
events to better understand their causes and possible treatments. For
now, Shaw often couples psychotherapy with self-hypnosis lessons to
teach children how to avoid the events.

"When they're feeling out of control, this is a tool they can use. They
know that they were able to 'turn off' an event during the initial
hypnosis, and that gives them confidence to try it themselves," said Shaw.

In general, people are growing more comfortable with the idea of
hypnosis in a medical setting, said Olson. "The first reaction of many
people may be to equate hypnosis with some sort of black magic. But once
we explain the reasons and benefits, they're very accepting."

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical
education and patient care at its three institutions - Stanford
University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile
Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. For more information, please
visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication &
Public Affairs at http://mednews. stanford. edu/.

Ranked as one of the nation's top 10 pediatric hospitals by U.S.News &
World Report, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford is a
264-bed hospital devoted to the care of children and expectant mothers.
Providing pediatric and obstetric medical and surgical services and
associated with the Stanford University School of Medicine, Packard
Children's offers patients locally, regionally and nationally the full
range of health care programs and services - from preventive and routine
care to the diagnosis and treatment of serious illness and injury. For
more information, visit http://www.lpch. org/.

Source: Krista Conger
Stanford University Medical Center