34th Annual Conference, Biofeedback Society of Texas
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Abstracts of Key Presentations

Keynote Address:
Pathways to Illness, Pathways to Health
Dr. Don Moss

This will introduce the Pathways model, a step-wise framework for providing a program for personal lifestyle change, biofeedback treatments, and other behavioral interventions, for chronic medical and emotional disorders. (The Pathways model will be featured in a book by Angele McGrady and Donald Moss scheduled for Springer Press in 2011).

The presenter advocates a comprehensive Pathways model for integrating behavioral, behavioral, psychophysiological, and lifestyle changes into health care. The model begins with a presentation of the Pathways to Illness paradigm, illustrating specific life style choices, environmental conditions, psychophysiological mechanisms, and cognitive/affective dysregulation processes, which lead the individual to the illness condition. Patients who understand the pathways that brought them to illness are more motivated to walk the pathway toward health. The address highlights the development of a prescriptive individualized pathway for health, beginning with restoring basic biological rhythms, continuing to self-directed training in self-regulation, and culminating in the delivery of optimal mind-body therapies.

Workshop 1, Ethics: Treating Traumatic Brain Injury: Ethical Considerations and Neurological Challenges
— Dr. Ron Swatzyna

Biofeedback and neurofeedback therapy is normally not the first stop on a person's journey back to mental health, regardless of their psychopathology.  Usually, we are their last stop following failed attempts of several medications and excellent psychotherapy. This is because mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) renders medication ineffective and consequently makes psychotherapy too challenging to tolerate. The CDC estimates 1.7 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury per year (75 percent mTBI) and mTBI symptoms can lead to significant, life-long physical, cognitive and psychological impairment. Adequate training in the neurological challenges of mTBI is an ethical absolute for every mental health practitioner, regardless of their specialty. This 3-hour workshop provides in-depth knowledge into the neurophysiology of mTBI so clinicians can accurately diagnose and ethically treat this underserved population.  

Workshop/Webinar 2: Creating a Business Plan: An Innovative Networking Model — Dr. Peter Litchfield

Practitioners spend years learning to perfect their trades, but generally learn nothing about the business of their trades.  This presentation meets this practical challenge head on.  

  • ARE YOU IN BUSINESS?   
    If you are in private practice, then you ARE in business.  And, if so, being a good businessperson, like being a good practitioner, is not just a necessity, it is a responsibility.  A truly successful practice necessarily means sound economics as well as efficacious and relevant services.   
  • DID YOU EVER WONDER?  
    Why does one practitioner have a six-month waiting list, while the other nine out of ten are struggling to survive?  Is this because they offer better services?  Or, is this because they know how to market themselves and their business?  How can you become a “one out of ten” practitioner?  
  • ARE YOU COMMUNICATING?  
    Marketing is about communicating.  Are you effectively communicating about your services to colleagues, to organizational affiliates, and to the public marketplace?  Make education your professional and public contact point. Develop a reputation as a community resource  
  • DO YOU HAVE A BUSINESS PLAN?  
    Operating without a business plan is a recipe for financial struggle.  Don’t play the role of “victim,” like many of your clients.  Take strategic action.  Create a self-evolving network of colleagues, affiliates, and clients.  Make your business a partnering enterprise with your clients and the community.  Make it global rather than local.  Create passive income.  Build equity in your business.
  • WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT?  
    Based on an innovative networking model, you will learn about creating business identities; setting up a network-infrastructure for offering your services; setting up multiple kinds of boards for credibility, network marketing, and referrals; forming partnerships with colleagues and allied businesses; establishing affiliations with educational institutions, corporate entities, healthcare provider organizations, and professional organizations; defining your services, determining fees, creating passive income, and organizing events; marketing strategies, sales, advertising; minimizing overhead, setting up Internet-based services, and understanding equity vs. income.
  •  PRESENTATION OBJECTIVES:  
    During this presentation you will learn about organizational and marketing principles, based on an educational networking model,  and how to apply them to (1) your existing business and/or (2) a new start-up (or parallel) business.  The overall objectives include learning to:   1. understand the elements of a networking business model, 2. set up colleague boards and a referral systems, 3. establish affiliations with third party organizations, 4. design marketing strategies that meet your business objectives, and 5. create a business plan for marketing your services

Workshop 3: Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback: What is HRV? What is its Medical and Psychological  Significance? How can we Optimally Train Positive HRV Changes?  — Dr. Don Moss

Heart rate variability (HRV) has been recognized as a medical index of health and resilience for over three decades. Lower HRV is a predictor of sudden death in cardiovascular clinics. Research shows that HRV is lowered by anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress, fibromyalgia, cardiovascular illness, and many chronic medical conditions. Higher HRV is associated with youthfulness, aerobic fitness, and vitality. Increasing heart rate variability is also an index of depth of trance.

This workshop will review the physiology of HRV, and explain the HRV indices used in research.   Only in the past fifteen years has a practical technology developed to provide real time feedback on heart rate variability, for biofeedback training.

This workshop will introduce and demonstrate basic biofeedback instrumentation and procedures to train increased heart rate variability. The workshop will emphasize the Lehrer-Vaschillo protocol for HRV biofeedback training, which has been used as the basis for most of the research investigations showing improved HRV measures in study participants. This protocol can be supplemented with an understanding of respiratory physiology and an emphasis on breath training. 

The workshop will review the outcome studies showing that HRV biofeedback can produce symptom reduction or functional improvement for the following disorders:  asthma, anxiety, depression, fibromyalgia, heart disease, hypertension, and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as two sample applications for optimal performance.