MINDFULNESS MEDITATION AND AMYOTROPHIC LATERAL SCLEROSIS (ALS): A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

He diagnosis of a chronic disease as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) has impact on patients and their caregivers. In the literature, there is a scarce investment in research related to the influence of mindfulness meditation practice in this context. This way, we carried out a literature review in order to contribute to a wider knowledge of the state of the art in this field. The review included a search for any type of publication, without any temporal constraints, with ALS patients and/or their caregivers and with a mindfulness intervention. The duplicated files were removed and the inclusion and exclusion criteria applied. In total, 4 studies evaluated the impact of mindfulness on ALS patients and/or their caregivers. The most frequent benefits were the improvement of quality of life and the decreasing levels of anxiety and depression. The influence on the disease progression was not unanimous between studies. The research related to the practice of mindfulness by ALS patients and/or their careviers is scarce and, until now, only in Italy. There is the need of more investigations that replicate, support/refute and expand the hypotheses made on these studies, as well as introduce the mindfulness as a potential tool to improve the quality of life of ALS patients and caregivers, as it presents benefits, without known adverse effects.