Effects of shirodhara in generalized anxiety disorder

Abstract

Anxiety is a common clinical presentation. Primary anxiety poses a significant problem in its management. Many among the current treatment options of anxiety are habit forming causing significant withdrawal symptoms. There are dose dependent responses often associated with drug adversities. Day time sedation is an undesired effect of many drugs used for anxiety management limiting its usage. Ayurveda recommends a bio-physical procedure to manage anxiety. Shirodhara, a dripping procedure is utilized as a front line therapy for anxiety in Ayurveda. Seeing the limitations of conventional biomedical management of anxiety requiring an improvement upon the existing protocols of managements, and also seeing the use of shirodhara for anxiety management in ayurvedic clinics, a pragmatic study to evaluate the effect of shirodhara in generalized anxiety disorder was done. This was a pragmatic study consisting of shirodhara with ksheer bala oil as an intervention upon generalized anxiety disorder patients. The study was conducted upon 13 patients and observations were done for six weeks. The responses observed through the changes in Hamilton Anxiety Scale were evaluated using paired t test to observe the pre-post significance.