A Study on Combined effects of Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Visual Imagery Technique on Perceived Pain, Levels of Anxiety and Depression in Patients with Burns

Background: Burns are one of the most painful type of trauma and pain management for this type of injury is a well documented problem in all aspects or recovery. Specifically pain control is common obstacle limiting physiotherapy treatments. Hence progressive muscle relaxation & visual imagery can be used as an intervention to improve patient's compliance during the physical therapy interventions.

Objective: To study the effect of progressive muscle relaxation & visual imagery on perceived pain during range of motion exercises and levels of anxiety and depression in patients with 20% to 50% of superficial to deep burns.

Design: Randomized control trial.

Methodology: 10 subjects with burns were randomly assigned to two groups. The Group A as the control group & Group B as the intervention group. Group A continued with conventional treatment & the Group B were given progressive muscle relaxation along with the conventional treatment.

Main outcome measures: visual analogue scale, hospital anxiety & depression scale (HADS).

Results: The mean pre-treatment VAS score for subjects in group B was 5.9 which reduced to 4.5 post treatment. The paired t-test which was statistically significant (P-value: 0.0007).The unpaired t-test of which was statistically significant( p-value. 0.0022) for anxiety & depression scores. The mean pretreatment anxiety level in subjects in group B was 12.6 i.e. abnormal which reduced to 8.8 i.e. borderline abnormal post treatment where as the mean pretreatment depression score was 12.8 i.e. abnormal which reduced to 9.6 i.e. borderline abnormal.

Conclusion: The results of the present study indicate that there was a statistically significant reduction in perceived levels of pain and in anxiety and depression during range of motion the exercises for subjects with burns receiving progressive muscle relaxation & visual imagery intervention as compared with those subjects who had not received progressive muscle relaxation & visual imagery intervention.