The Use of Biofeedback To Improve Performance in Athletes - Essay Example

?Running Head: THE USE OF BIOFEEDBACK TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE IN ATHLETES Sport and Exercise Psychology of ReviewFor an individual to perform optimally in sports and exercises there are numerous strategies or activities that he/she may incorporate in the sports or exercises undertaken. Among these interventions is biofeedback, relaxation, imagery, self-talk, and goal-setting. This study focuses on the use of biofeedback to improve one’s performance in sports and exercises. Due to the importance of sports and exercises in the modern society, it has become necessary that athletes and other sportsmen and women embark on numerous interventions such as goal-setting, imagery and biofeedback, which aim at improving their performance, health and well-being (Rosen, 2008). Biofeedback refers to processes by which sportsmen become aware of the various physiological functions related to sports performance (Mullally et al, 2009). By use of instruments, which give vital information on the health and activities of these physiological functions and organs, athletes are in a better position to monitor and adjust their performance, unlike if they are not aware of their psychological status. The objective of monitoring the activities and health of these physiological functions is to help an athlete to manipulate the functions at will for the desired exercise/sports performance or results (Dickinson, 2006). Listed among these physiological functions that one may manipulate for desired sports/exercise results include heart rate, brainwaves, muscle tone, skin conductance and pain perception. Besides improving performance, biofeedback (the physiological changes), which takes place together with changes in behaviour, emotions and thoughts is also used to improve health. In fact, biofeedback has been proved to be effective in treating migraines and headache among other diseases. Although most of the times people tend to manipulate and change these physiological functions by use of equipment, at other times, it is possible to carry out these changes without the use of equipment. The rationale for this study on the use of biofeedback to improve health and sports/exercise performance by athletes is that biofeedback and related procedures such as neuro-feedback have been found to be important in the provision of the much needed evidence-based practices and approach to the health care and the sports science industries. Therefore, the concerned organisations, government/private agencies and individuals should collaborate to make, rate and categorise treatments and other interventions related to the clinical and exercise efficiency of biofeedback application (Shaffer & Schwartz, 2004). Through studies such as this one, it would be possible for standards, principles and guidelines on the efficiency of biofeedback and other sport/exercise-improving interventions. These efficacy standards should also target other functions of biofeedback such as disorders including hypertension, substance abuse, facial pain, attention deficit disorder and headache. Therefore, studying biofeedback and its effects on sports/exercise performance would also see the same efficacy standards being applied to the management and improvement of medical and psychological disorders. Defining Biofeedback Biofeedback has been particularly useful in the training of people to improve their health by controlling body processes such as blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and skin temperature, all of which often take place involuntarily. In most of the biofeedback techniques, electronic devices, otherwise referred to as electrodes are attached to one’s skin to measures these physiological processes. The results are then displayed on monitors. Upon learning the nature and health of these physiological functions from the monitor, it is possible for one to learn how to change his/her blood pressure and heart rate to improve or maintain performance and healthy body and mind functions. As mentioned earlier, one uses an electrode or an equipment to monitor the progress of the targeted physiological function but later manages to monitor and control such processes without the use of electrodes (Moss, 1999). The electrodes attached to one’s skin sends signals to a monitoring box. The monitoring box then transforms these signals into tones of various pitches or visual meters with varying brightness. Similarly, the signals conveyed to a computerized monitor could be translated into lines moving across a grid. The presence of biofeedback therapists in sports and exercises cannot be ignored since they are quite important in leading the mental aspects or components of sports/exercises. That is, by trial and error, athletes are able to learn the mental activities that would result in the desired physical and physiological changes (Bruehl & Chung, 2006). Although nor directly linked to athletics, the following health problems could also be addressed by biofeedback: bed wetting, chronic pain and constipation. The other conditions are depression, asthma, autism, back pain, diabetes, anorexia nervosa and anxiety (Andrasik, 2010). Although applied for many conditions, biofeedback is mostly used by sportsmen to treat or manage migraine headache, chronic pain, tension headache, high blood pressure, and urinary incontinence. Literatures and studies have covered many types of biofeedback. However, the three main types are Electromyography (EMG), thermal biofeedback, and neuro-feedback or electroencephalography (EEG). While EMG is used to measure, monitor and control muscle tension, thermal biofeedback is used to measure the temperature of one’s skin. The third major type of biofeedback, the EEG, measures brain wave activity. More researches are however required in the three main techniques of biofeedback. This is particularly so given that researchers are not quite sure of the exact the mechanisms by which some biofeedback techniques work (Burgio et al, 2006). Nonetheless, that stress is a common factor in the conditions of most of the people who have benefitted from biofeedback use is an apparent fact. Therefore, researches have concluded that relaxation could be a major component in the working mechanism of biofeedback therapies. Because chronic stress increases physiological processes such as blood pressure, guidance by a biofeedback therapist could help an athlete to learn how to lower his/her blood pressure by mental exercises and other relaxation techniques (Glick & Greco, 2010). Unfortunately, biofeedback use in health care and sports/exercise industries has been criticized from several quarters. Those proposing biofeedback use in health care and sports have therefore continued to be criticized mainly because most people consider their cost and whether they support evidence-based practices in these disciplines. This criticism thus targets the cost-effectiveness and efficacies of biofeedback interventions. Nonetheless, biofeedback has no known negative effects thus considered safe (Chung et la, 2006). It is a service that can be offered by specialists such as nurses, dentists, physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists. Proposal After reading historical and background literatures, the topic and the focus of the study were developed. After reading the gathered research materials on the topic of interest, a stance was be made on the manner in which the arguments of the study would be presented and the attitude/angle to be taken. After identifying what to be researched and the reasons for the research, the aims would be outlined, thus assisting in organising the study’s focus into its core concepts. Generally this study is an observation one, targeting the effects of biofeedback on the performance in sports and exercises, more so in athletes. That is, the study seeks to establish if incorporating biofeedback to a sport/exercise improves one’s performance or experiences in the sport in question. Targeting college and university students/sportsmen and women, the study intends to set up an experiment to generate artificial data, output of which would then be streamed out to sports participants. This study intends to exploit the many modern techniques and methods of analysing sports performances used not only by sports scientists but also athletes and their coaches. These qualitative and quantitative methods have subsequently proved effective in improving sporting performance. Core in the methods to be used are the tools or process involved in selecting and specifying the research topic and the obtainment of ethical approval for the study. To arrive at the study topic and thesis statement, a brainstorming session took place first. During the brainstorming, the main perspective was multiplayer sports. Thus, the development of the concept of the study focused on athletes. Nonetheless, the major concepts of biofeedback as applied in other types of sports were exhaustively considered. After settling on the topic of the study, a literature study was conducted on the topic. With the inspiration of other related studies, the topic of the use of a biofeedback to improve performance in sports was settled on. This study thus seeks to establish if including and observing and changing biofeedback processes would enhance one’s performance in a given sport. Several psychologists and sport specialists and coaches have developed hardware capable of measuring EMG. These Hardware have shown that cognitive processes such as imagery have profound effects on one’s EMG levels. In this study, several sensor modalities are intended to be used on participants to detect various psychological processes underlying sports and exercise performance. These sensor modalities include electromyography (EMG), feedback thermometer and electroencephalograph. In EMG, surface electrodes are used in the detection of muscle potentials in the various skeletal muscles useful in contraction. The resultant electromyogram (SEMG) would then be measured and recorded in micro-volts, after placing an active electrode over target muscles. These EMG results are useful in the treatment of anxiety, mixed headache, essential hypertension and worry in sportsmen. Although there are different procedures for EMG in various institutions, the two major and most common procedures are referred to as the surface EMG and the intramuscular (needle and fine-wire) EMG. In this study, to perform the intramuscular EMG method, a needle electrode will be inserted through a participant’s skin into muscle tissue. In professional practice, the electrical activity of the skin is often observed by a neurologist, physical therapist or a physicist while the needle electrode is inserted into one’s skin. In this study, the insertion process would be valuable in providing vital information on the state of the muscles and the innervating nerve. Normally, while at rest, an athlete’s muscles have specific electrical signals indicated whenever a needle electrode is inserted in the skin (Wang et al., 2007). In this study, the electrical conductivity of the participants’ muscles when they are at rest will be studied. The presence of any abnormal electrical activity would thus indicate nerve or muscle damage. By asking the participants to contract their muscles smoothly, it will be possible to judge the size, shape and the frequency of the resultant electrical activity or potentials. However, since muscles differ in their inner structures; the needle electrode will be placed at various locations to reflect accurate result (Zatsiorsky & Kraemer, 2006). In case the intramuscular technique proves quite invasive or unnecessary for a participant, surface electrode will be applied in monitoring their muscle activation. Advantageously, this strategy studies mass muscular activity, compared to the former technique, which is appropriate for just a few fibers. Besides being used in the physiotherapy clinic, surface EMG is commonly used in monitoring muscle activation among athletes assisting them to know when they are activating the muscle (biofeedback). There are several benefits that the EMG studies will accrue for the participants. Majorly, the participants may become aware of the presence of medical conditions such as neuromuscular junction diseases and neuropathies. The second biofeedback intervention to be used in the study is the feedback thermometer, which detects skin temperatures with a heat-sensitive resistor. This resist is often attached to one’s finger or toe and it measures the temperature in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit. The recorded skin temperature has been found to reflect arteriole diameter. By knowing their arteriole temperature, sportsmen could treat and prevent conditions such as edema, essential hypertension, chronic pain and headache, anxiety, and stress, all of which negatively affect sport and exercise performance (Zatsiorsky, 2000). The second methodology to be used in the study would involve the use of an Electrodermograph (EDG), a device that measures the electrical activity of skin either directly via skin conductance and potential or indirectly by resistance. In this technique, electrodes are placed on an athlete’s hand or wrist. The use of this technique is based on the electrical conductivity effect of orientating responses to unexpected stimuli, arousal, cognitive activities, worries or anxieties to increased sweat gland activities. Consequent to this increased activity of sweat glands, the electrical conductivity of an athlete’s skin would be increased. The function of an electrodermograph in this process therefore would be to impose an imperceptible current across an athlete’s skin, measuring how easily the current travels through the skin (Kaiser, 2009). With an increase in the levels of anxiety in an athlete there is a corresponding increase in the amount of sweat in one’s sweat ducts, thus increasing the skin’s conductance. One of the applications of electrodermal biofeedback among athletes is in the treatment of anxiety disorders and stress, enabling athletes to be more aware of their emotions and changes in their anxiety levels or emotional activation and their effects on their performance. Ethical Issues In this study, there are numerous ethical standards and principles that will have to be adhered to. That is, Exercise, health and sports research emphasizes the importance of ethics at the center of researches. Therefore, the moral theories that guide sports and exercise researches will be applied in this study. Among the key concepts of ethical research to be observed in the study include anonymity, privacy, confidentiality, informed consent, vulnerable participants, trans-cultural research and ethics of qualitative research (Child Protection Support Unit, 2005). The other ethical issues to be covered in the study are plagiarism, misappropriation of authorship and research fraud. The first ethical concern to be addresses during the study is that this research on sportsmen/athletes will have to be valuable and legitimate by seriously taking into account the welfare of the participating sportsmen. That this study would be valuable to the participants is that it would personally benefit them since they would later apply the tested interventions on their performance as athletes. Second, the research must have minimal or zero risk as it would entail procedures that athletes and other sportsmen encounter in their everyday activities (Child Protection Support Unit, 2005). Importantly, as all other sports and exercise researches, this study will first be approved to confirm its merits or relevance/appropriateness to the discipline of sports and science. By its being approved, the study will have passed the quality and the risk/benefit ratio tests. The other important ethical issue to be addressed by the study is informed consent in which parental, legal guardian or personal consent must be obtained before the study starts. In this context, consent refers to the positive agreement of an individual that he participates in a study or related activities (Child Protection Support Unit, 2005). However, in obtaining this agreement and approval from the expected participants, it is vital that coercion or inducement is applied and the participants must have the powers to withdraw from the study at will. The information gathered during the study will also have to meet certain ethical standards and the relevant statutes concerned with data protection and confidentiality. In this regard, participant anonymity and privacy will be assured and participants’ personal data will not be disclosed unless the participants or their legal guardians or parents consent to such a disclosure (Child Protection Support Unit, 2005). Generally, the study will be conducted in a manner that safeguards and promotes the dignity, welfare, rights and the safety of the sportsmen and sportswomen involved. Additionally, the participants will be informed on how the study would promote and support safe and positive sports/exercise environment for participants during and after the study (Child Protection Support Unit, 2005). The study will also lay down certain mechanisms by which the concerns of the participants would be responded to such as a step-by-step guidance on the course of action if there are participant safety issues. Appropriate dressing, proper language use and avoidance of unnecessary contacts with participants are the other ethical issues the study will address. The benefits of these ethical practices during the study include ensuring no/minimum harm to participants, benefits to all. References Andrasik, F. (2010) Biofeedback in headache: an overview of approaches and evidence. 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M., and Greco, C. M. (2010). Biofeedback and Primary Care. Primary Care, 37(1), 103. Kaiser, D. A. (2009). Meta-Analysis of EEG Biofeedback in Treating Epilepsy. Clinical EEG Neuroscience 40(3):173-9. Moss, D. (1999). Biofeedback, mind-body medicine, and the higher limits of human nature. Humanistic and transpersonal psychology: a historical and biographical sourcebook. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Mullally, W. J., Hall, K., and Goldstein, R. (2009). Efficacy of Biofeedback in the Treatment of Migraine and Tension Type Headaches. Pain Physician, 12(6):1005-11. Rosen, D. M. (2008). Dope: a history of performance enhancement in sports from the nineteenth century to today. Praeger. Shaffer, F., and Schwartz, M. S. (2004). Entering the field and assuring competence. In M. S. Schwartz,& F. Andrasik (Eds.). Biofeedback: A practitioner's guide, fourth edition. New York: The Guilford Press. Wang, M. Y. et al. (2007). 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