Effects of Eurythmy Therapy in the Treatment of Essential Arterial Hypertension: A Pilot Study

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Although eurythmy therapy (ET) has been used in the context of anthroposophic medicine (AM) for the treatment of, among other conditions, arterial hypertension (AH) for more than 80 years, there are as yet no studies on its effectiveness on disease entity. However, it has been shown that ET can increase heart rate variability comparably to ergometer training. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a 10-week course of ET has an impact on AH and if so, to determine the strength of the effect. The impact of ET on state-autonomic regulation, self-regulation, internal coherence, and quality of life is also explored. METHODS: Consecutive inclusion of 9 subjects (6 female, 3 male, mean age of 64 years, SD 8.26) with AH diagnosed by their general practitioners. INCLUSION CRITERIA: no or unchanged antihypertensive medication from 4 weeks prior to the start of the study until the end of the study. ET was carried out with weekly instruction along with a daily, home-based program for 10 weeks with specific exercises. Twenty-four-hour blood pressure (BP) measuring was carried out, and the questionnaires were administered before and after the intervention. In addition, after a further 6 months during which 8 of the 9 patients carried on with the exercises of their own accord, the aforementioned parameters were assessed for a third time. RESULTS: Parameters of the 24-hour BP measurements show a moderate, but not significant, improvement immediately after the intervention and 6 months after the intervention. After the 10-week intervention, we saw an improvement of the State-autonomic Regulation questionnaire, the subscale on "Rest/Activity regulation," of the Self-regulation questionnaire, and the subscale "Initiative and Interest" of the Herdecke Quality of Life Questionnaire (HLQ) (all P