A training technique that enables an individual to gain some element of voluntary control over autonomic body functions; based on the learning principle that a desired response is learned when received information; such as, a recorded increase in skin temperature (feedback) indicates that a specific thought complex or action has produced the desired physiological response.

In theory, a subject can learn to control his internal organs and vital functions; it might therefore be possible for a patient with essential hypertension to learn how to reduce his/her blood pressure.

Biofeedback has been used to control heart rate, blood pressure, migraine head aches, and to relax spastic muscles.

A therapeutic procedure that uses electronic or electromechanical instruments to measure, process, and feed back reinforcing information with auditory and visual signals accurately.

It is used to provide information about muscle activity during ambulation, for example, in patients with brain injury, stroke, or cerebral palsy.

1. A method that teaches patients to increase or to decrease the temperature of their hands by feedback with signals indicating hand temperature.

This has been used primarily in the treatment of headaches.

2. The monitoring of skin temperature as an index of blood flow changes because of the dilation and constriction of blood vessels, the feedback being displayed to the patient on a video monitor, accompanied by an audible signal.

It is used for stress management and in the treatment of hypertension, migraine, and Raynaud disease (usually a bilateral disease of the blood vessels; especially, of the extremities which might be caused by cold or emotion, accompanied by intermittent pallor, cyanosis, and redness, and generally accompanied by pain).