Bringing the feet in from the cold: thermal biofeedback training of foot-warming in Raynaud's syndrome.
The biofeedback-assisted treatment of a case of Raynaud's syndrome was examined in order to determine the relationship between learning of the hand-warming response and the subsequent ability to produce foot-warming responses. It was found that fluctuations in dermal hand and foot temperatures were not significantly related, either within or across treatment sessions. The obtained hand-warming response was of high magnitude and rapidly learned, while the foot-warming response was more modest and took substantially more trials to learn. These results indicate that an easy generalization of the hand-warming response cannot be assumed.
D000328:Adult; D001326:Autogenic Training; D001676:Biofeedback, Psychology; D005260:Female; D005528:Foot / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006225:Hand / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D011928:Raynaud Disease / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D012881:Skin Temperature; D014034:Toes / Q000503:physiopathology