Mindfulness meditation improves quality of life, reduces kinesiophobia in patients with MI
Mindfulness meditation significantly improved quality of life and decreased kinesiophobia among patients with acute MI, researchers reported.
“Psychosocial adaptation, lifestyle changes, cardiac rehabilitation interventions and various complementary and integrative approaches have been applied for symptom management and increasing the quality of life of the patients after heart attack. On the other hand, mindfulness-based approaches have drawn increasing attention in recent years for the treatment of various chronic diseases,” Canan Karadas, PhD, research assistant at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, told Healio. “The use of breath as an anchor during mindfulness meditation ensures that instant attention remains in the breathing process. Mindfulness meditation can contribute to reducing fear by regulating the physical stress response as well as the emotional response in the body when encountering challenging emotions and situations such as heart attack. Therefore, mindfulness meditation may prove to be effective in reducing fatigue and kinesiophobia and improving the quality of life in patients after MI.”
For the study, presented at the virtual European Society of Cardiology Acute Cardiovascular Care Congress, researchers enrolled 56 patients with acute MI (mean age, 55 years) who were randomly assigned to the meditation group or the control group. Patients in the meditation group received a 15-minute mindfulness meditation session that included sitting with their eyes closed and breathing deeply and focusing on their breathing for 8 weeks. Patients in the control group received single-time attention-matched education.
There was no significant difference in fatigue scores in the cohort after completing the 8-week mindfulness meditation. However, researchers observed lower kinesiophobia scores for those in the meditation group at weeks 4, 8 and 12 (P < .05), and quality of life scores were higher in the meditation group at 8 weeks compared with the control group (P < .05).
Changes in emotional function subdimension of quality of life score were maintained at 12 weeks (P < .05).
“Patients can easily practice mindfulness intervention at their homes. It is low cost and has low risk due to intervention,” Karadas said in an interview. “Moreover, mindfulness is just not limited with breath. It can be adapted in every area of life such as mindful eating, mindful walking or mindful yoga.”
According to Karadas, mindfulness meditation should be integrated into clinical practice as an integrative and complementary intervention in the scope of secondary prevention after MI.
“Pilot randomized controlled studies, including mindfulness-based cardiac rehabilitation, provide preliminary evidence of potential of mindfulness to improve short-term psychosocial well-being in cardiac patients during their first year of recovery,” Karadas said. “Therefore, we suggest that mindfulness interventions can be implemented to cardiac rehabilitation programs as a holistic dimension to improve body and mind connection.”
For more information:
Canan Karadas, PhD, can be reached at karadas.canan@gmail.com.
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Karadas C, et al. Abstract 20343. Presented at: ESC Acute Cardiovascular Care Congress; March 13-14, 2021 (virtual meeting).
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