Background: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic eczematous skin disease whose main symptom is persistent itching. New complementary or alternative therapy is needed for severe AD patients whose itching symptom is not well managed under conventional th...
Background: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic eczematous skin disease whose main symptom is persistent itching. New complementary or alternative therapy is needed for severe AD patients whose itching symptom is not well managed under conventional therapy. There have been numerous studies reported on the efficacy of hypnotic therapy on various skin diseases, but little on AD in Korea.
Objective: This study is to assess the efficacy of hypnotic therapy on severe AD for adult patients.
Methods: Two adult patients, whose symptom did not respond well to traditional regimen, were recruited. They gave consent on hypnotic therapy prior to the study. For four weeks they underwent hypnotic therapy once a week and self-hypnotherapy on the rest of days when they did not have hypnotic therapy. The study is formed of three sections in the total course of 12 weeks: pre-treatment for the first four weeks, treatment for the next four weeks, and post-treatment for the last four weeks. Hypnotherapy includes direct and indirect suggestions of relieving itching, direct suggestion of decreasing scratching behavior, direct and indirect suggestions of healing the damaged skin, and relaxation of mind and body. Severity of AD, quality of life, anxiety and depression were assessed eight times over the 12 week course. SCORAD-index, Skindex-29, BDI (Beck Depression Inventory) and STAI (State Trait Anxiety Index) were used as assessment tools.
Results: In HIP-K (Hypnotic Induction Profile - Korean), Patient A and B marked respectively 6, 6.75 on induction score, and soft 2.5 and intact 4 on profile grade. Both patients were within normal range in anxiety and depression before hypnotherapy and there was no significant change recorded after treatment. Patient A and B marked 63.6 and 60.5 respectively in average SCORAD-index before hypnotherapy. After hypnotherapy, patient A marked 57.9, 52.2 and patient B marked 38.0, 39.7 at the time of 10th week and 12th week. They had 69.2 and 75.6 respectively in average Skindex-29 before hypnotherapy. After hypnotherapy, they marked 64.7, 37.9 at the 10th week and 56.9, 34.5 at the 12th week respectively.
Conclusion: The significant improvement was found in severity of AD and quality of life in one patient who had high hypnotizability. The study opened the possibility of hypnotherapy to be used as one method of alternative or complementary therapies on severe AD. However, there is still limitation to generalize the result. Therefore, this study recommends further clinical study with large group of subjects to evaluate the efficacy of hypnotherapy on severe AD, in depth, and see whether the therapy can be widely used for AD patients.
Keywords: Atopic dermatitis, Hypnotherapy, Severity, Quality of life, Depression, Anxiety