Anna M. Tacón

Mindfulness meditation, anxiety reduction, and heart disease: a pilot study.

Summary: Heart disease is the leading cause of death among Americans each year, yet the misperception still exists that cardiovascular disease is not a serious health problem for women. Evidence indicates that anxiety contributes to the development of heart disease. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of Kabat-Zinns mindfulness-based stress reduction program to reduce anxiety in women with heart disease. Anxiety, emotional control, coping styles, and health locus of control were compared in a treatment and control group of women with heart disease. Post-intervention analyses provide initial support for beneficial effects of this program.

Attachment and Parental Correlates in Late Adolescent Mexican American Women.

Attachment dimensions and styles, parental caregiving styles, and acculturation were investigated among late adolescent Mexican American Hispanic and non-Hispanic White college women. Results showed no differences between groups on dimensions of attachment or distribution of attachment styles. Significant differences were found for parental gender. For both groups, mothers were rated higher on warmth, whereas fathers’ scores were higher for both ambivalent and cold caregiving styles. No maternal variables were associated with attachment security—only paternal variables—that highlights the salient role of fathers. Implications of measurement and acculturation are discussed as well as recommendations for future research into Hispanic populations.

Meditation as a complementary therapy in cancer.

Summary: The number of cancer patients seeking complementary therapies to deal with their disease has increased steadily in recent decades. Complementary therapies can be helpful to cancer patients because they address some of the pervasive psychosocial difficulties associated with this disease. One mind-body technique is meditation. While programs using meditation have been developed for specific health populations, such as heart disease and addictions, an equivalent, well-established program for cancer patients is lacking. This article reviews the literature and proposes a complementary meditation program designed specifically for use with cancer patients.

Attachment and Cancer: A Conceptual Integration

Cancer traditionally has been explained by the biomedical model; however, it is limited in comprehensively accounting for all factors in this disease. Recently, it has been suggested that a broader theoretical framework that includes psychosocial components in cancer is needed to complement the traditional approach. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to explore the utility of attachment theory as a biopsychosocial model of both development and health. Attachment, a developmental theory, explains how repeated interactions between caregiver and child in the early years establish lifelong psychosocial, physiological, affective, and cognitive patterns as well as enduring patterns of stress response to threat or illness. Despite attachment theory’s biopsychosocial foundation, the application of attachment security as a factor in physical health and psychosomatic medicine is relatively recent. The current work reviews attachment theory and psychosocial literature with regard to cancer and follows with a novel attempt to conceptually integrate both bodies of literature. A concluding integrative model of attachment theory and the type C behavior pattern is provided to illustrate potential links and integrative processes that may lead to disease resilience or vulnerability.

Attachment experiences in women with breast cancer.

Research into relational experiences of cancer patients suggests possible links between attachment processes and cancer. Women with and without breast cancer were assessed regarding attachment history and early loss, closeness to parents, and adult attachment. Women with breast cancer reported significantly higher incidences of insecure histories and early loss, and scored significantly higher on avoidant attachment than women without cancer. The women in the cancer group also scored significantly lower on closeness to parents than women in the noncancer group. These findings are preliminary and indicate that more research is needed to understand the role that attachment may play in a multidimensional, biopsychosocial model of cancer.

The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Movement on Parameters of Stress

The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR) of Kabat-Zinn includes a combination of sitting meditation, yoga, and walking; thus, movement is not emphasized primarily to induce a state of awareness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a Mindfulness-Based Movement Program (MBM) in women on parameters of stress and coping; that is, in contrast to MBSR, MBM primarily emphasized yoga to cultivate awareness. This study investigated: (a) an objective measure of stress (the cortisol response to a laboratory stressor) following an 8-week MBM in year 1 participants only (n = 17; MBM group = 9; Control group = 8); (b) subjective measures of stress following an 8-week MBM in years 1 and 2 (n = 32; MBM = 16; C = 16); and (c) changes in coping style following an 8- week MBM in years 1 and 2 (n = 32; MBM = 16; C = 16). A mixed plot 2 (Group: TC or MBM) by 5 (Trial: Baseline, Stressor, Recovery 1, Recovery 2, and Recovery 3) repeated measures ANOVA was run for cortisol. Preliminary results indicated a strong trend towards a lowered cortisol response for the MBM group compared to the control group. A mixed plot 2 (Group: TC or MBM) by 2 (Time: Pretest, Post-test) repeated measures ANOVA was run for Spielbergs State Anxiety, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Problem Focused Style of Coping Scale for the Suppressive, Reflective, and the Reactive Coping Style. There were significant main effects for time, group, and an interaction of time and group for Spielbergs State Anxiety and the Perceived Stress Scale. Significant differences were also found for time and the interaction of time and group for the Problem Focused Style of Coping for the Reflective Coping Style (p < 0.05). In conclusion, results indicate positive effects of the MBM program on perceived measures of stress and coping style in women.

The Lifestyle Plague and Health: Obesity and Endometrial Cancer

The Lifestyle Plague and Health: Obesity and Endometrial Cancer In developed and westernized countries such as the United States, endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common gynecological cancer with incidence rates being as much as 10 times higher than other cultures. The majority of women present with postmenopausal and abnormal perimenopausal bleeding, and almost 75% of these patients are in the early disease stage, yet the death rate has risen.

PTSD in the Context of Malignant Disease

Posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD is an extreme psycho-physiological response disorder that may occur in individuals who are exposed to a potentially traumatic event that can involve the subjectively profound threat of loss... of life or limb. To receive a PTSD diagnosis, reactions to the catastrophic or traumatic stressor must involve profound fear, helplessness, or horror. Furthermore, such individuals have to experience symptoms from three separate yet co-occurring symptom clusters. These clusters or domains include: 1) intrusive recollections or the re-experiencing of the event with accompanied intense psychological distress or physiologic reactivity; 2) persistent avoidance of activities, thoughts as well as feelings associated with the traumatic event; and, 3) increased or extreme arousal that may include an exaggerated startle response, hypervigilance, or insomnia (American Psychiatric Association, 1994; Uddin et al., 2010) To justify a PTSD diagnosis, symptoms must be present for at least one month, and impair an individual’s interpersonal, occupational, or social functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). PTSD has been described as a specific phenotype that develops as the result of a failure to contain the normal stress response (Yehuda & LeDoux, 2007), resulting in dysregulation of the hypothalamic– pituitary–adrenal or HPA axis, a major stress response system of the body that interacts with the immune system to maintain homeostasis (Wong, 2002). PTSD-affected and unaffected individuals have distinct expression patterns in genes involved in immune activation (Segman et al., 2005; Zieke et al., 2007), and in genes that encode neural and endocrine proteins (Segman et al., 2005; Yehuda et al., 2009). Above all, PTSD is both an external and internal experience; that is, PTSD is an external catastrophic or traumatic event and an internal psycho-physiological experience.

Approaches to Chronic Disease and Chronic Care: From Oxymoron to Modern Zeitgeist

The increasing prevalence and cost of chronic diseases and care indicate that comprehensive changes and paradigm shifts are needed in how healthcare systems approach and care for the chronically ill. Biological systems theory has been suggested as a model to explain human differences within surrounding systems that could translate into biological mechanisms, and is consistent with the chronic care model. Biological systems theory defines five levels of environmental contexts within the social milieu of an individual: the microsystem, comprising the direct interactions and intimate relationships of an individual’s everyday life; the mesosystem, relating to interactions between the components of the microsystem; the exosystem, comprising the wider social and community setting; the macrosystem, consisting of cultural value, ethnic identity, beliefs, laws, and customs; and the chronosystem, comprising the patterns of events throughout the lifecourse. Interventions incorporating biological systems theory have shown some success in pediatric populations. Bioecological systems theory presents an out-of-the-box discipline approach for potential application or contribution to chronic care that is consistent with the chronic care model.

Longitudinal trajectories of physical activity in women using latent class growth analysis: The WIN Study

Purpose This study aimed (1) to examine the longitudinal trajectories in objectively measured physical activity (PA); (2) to identify unknown (i.e., latent) subgroups with distinct trajectories; and (3) to examine the correlates of latent subgroups among community dwelling women. Methods The study sample included a total of 669 women from the Womens Injury Study, a 5-year prospective cohort study conducted from 2007 in the Southwest Central region of the US. Pedometer-based step-count data across 18 consecutive months were fitted to a latent growth model (LGM) and a latent class growth model (LCGM). Baseline characteristics were regressed on latent class membership. Results The longitudinal change in PA was best fit to a piecewise LGM with seasonal transitions. Significantly increased and decreased levels of PA were observed during the spring, fall, and winter, respectively (p < 0.001). Three latent subgroups with distinct PA trajectories were identified (low-active (46.8%), somewhat-active (41.3%), and active (11.9%)). Age and body fat percentage at the baseline significantly explained the likelihoods of being in low-active subgroup. Conclusion Seasonal variations in PA among women were observed but may not be practically significant. A relatively large portion of the sample showed low levels of PA for long periods. Intervention strategies should be considered for women who are overweight or obese, and aged >40 years old to promote PA during the life course.