Does cranial osteopathic treatment (COT) have an effect on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) as recorded by heart rate variability (HRV)?
Item
- Title
- Does cranial osteopathic treatment (COT) have an effect on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) as recorded by heart rate variability (HRV)?
- Author(s)
- Ferrre, I
- Abstract
- Background: HRV is one way of measuring the ANS activity as low frequency, high frequency ratio (LF/HF) is thought to be a measure of sympathovagal balance. The current literature supports this subject as an area to further investigate as there are some indications that COT could influence the ANS although published studies fail to produce high level. Objective: To investigate whether COT has an effect on LH/HF (ms2). Design: Three arm, randomized controlled trial. Methods: Participants recruited were students from the European School of Osteopathy and excluded for any history of cardiovascular diseases or recent head traumas. Qualified osteopaths were recruited for the treatment group and practitioners naTve to COT for the sham group. A polar heart rate monitor was used to capture RR intervals. The treatment and sham group were single blinded, receiving a 2Omin "black box" cranial treatment and a 2Omin touch only cranial vault hold respectively. 5min recordings pre and post were taken. The control group laid supine for 3Omin. Artiifact was used to detect artifacts, replacing them by cubic spline interpolation. Kubios was used to calculate LF/HF with fast Fourier transform and autoregressive methods at six 5-min time points. The LF/HF obtained were used for intergroup comparison in excel and variables predicting changes were explored by regression analysis. Results: 28 students participated in the study. There was no significant difference in LF/HF at any time point in any group. An indication of a decrease in LF/HF during COT was observed. Age, perceived cranial physiological lesion and perceived receptivity to treatment (reported by practitioners) were found to predict changes occurring during treatment. Discussion: This study's findings support the overall conclusion present in the literature: there may be an insignificant increase in parasympathetic activity during COT. Many variables and some limitations in the study methodology could have introduced errors in the results. This experiment questions the soundness of the notion of responders to COT and the validity of using HRV measures to reflect sympathovagal balance. Conclusion: COT has an insignificant effect on LF/HF. Further studies should not use LF/HF as an outcome for sympathovagal balance and have expertise on how to process and analyze HRV data.
- presented at
- European School of Osteopathy
- Date Accepted
- 2015
- Date Submitted
- 2.12.2016 16:54:59
- Type
- osteo_thesis
- Language
- English
- Submitted by:
- 62
- Pub-Identifier
- 15890
- Inst-Identifier
- 1229
- Keywords
- autonomic nervous system, cranial osteopathic treatment,craniosacral therapy, heart rate variability
- Recommended
- 0
- Item sets
- Thesis
Ferrre, I, “Does cranial osteopathic treatment (COT) have an effect on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) as recorded by heart rate variability (HRV)?”, Osteopathic Research Web, accessed April 23, 2025, https://library.wso.at/s/orw/item/591