[Effect of combination treatment by concentration and relaxation training after subarachnoid hemorrhage (single case...

Using an ABAB single case design, the effects of a combination therapy (phase A) of computer-assisted attention retraining and Progressive Relaxation (PR) are examined in comparison to those of condition B in which short breaks are used instead of PR. The patient was a 57 year-old man with specific attention deficits following spontaneous subarachnoid haemorrhage (without operation). In both conditions, A and B, the patient ran through three therapy sessions of 45 minutes duration in the course of three days, with 6 minutes of attention retraining alternating with 6 minutes of PR or break, respectively. The results revealed that a) in comparison to the baseline (attention retraining without PR or break), both conditions, A and B, enabled the patient to cope effectively with the 45 minute training sessions without significant increase of complaints (muscular tension, excitement); b) attentional performance (complete test d2) raised up to the average over the whole ABAB experiment; c) attentional performance (tested before and after each phase with a third part of test d2) decreased under the break condition during the individual sessions, while it was unchanged under PR; d) attentional performance at the computer retraining programme ("Bild" by Rigling) partially increased under PR and slightly decreased under break condition; e) there was less excitement and less muscular tension under PR in comparison to the break condition; and f) pain in the joints and exhaustion (both measured with the GBB) were reduced significantly under PR, as opposed to a marked increased in the break condition.