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CLINICAL TRIAL article
Front. Sleep
Sec. Precision Sleep Medicine
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsle.2025.1510293
This article is part of the Research Topic Pain Management in Palliative Care View all 5 articles
Effects of Complete Home-based Biofeedback Therapy on Insomnia Disorders in Patients with Cancer
Provisionally accepted
Hideaki Hasuo 1*
Keita Mori 2
Hiromichi Matsuoka 3
Mariko Shimazu 1
Hisaharu Shizuma 1 Yukihiro Morita 1
Hideki Ishikawa 4- 1 Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
- 2 Shizuoka Cancer Center, Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan
- 3 National Cancer Centre (Japan), Tokyo, Japan
- 4 Kyoto Prefectural University, Kyoto, Kyōto, Japan
Background: Professional palliative care for patients with cancer focuses on symptom management. Methods: This exploratory, randomized controlled study was conducted to compare the effects of complete home-based heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV-BFB) using an estimation formula for resonance frequency in managing insomnia disorders among patients with cancer.Results: Only 28 patients were included from the initial enrollment of 30 patients from two study sites.Results showed that compared to the control group, the HRV-BFB group improved sleep efficiency from 82.0% (standard deviation: 9.1%) to 87.8% (standard deviation: 7.2%) (p <0.001) and decreased use of sleeping medication from 88.2% (95% confidence interval, 73.6-95.8) to 51.5% (95% confidence interval, 41.8–61.1) (p <0.001).Conclusions: This suggests that complete home-based HRV-BFB using an estimation formula for resonance frequency may be a promising tool for treating insomnia disorders in patients with cancer, potentially improving sleep efficiency and decreasing reliance on sleep medications.Trial Registration: UMIN 000046884. Registered February 11, 2022.
Keywords: Heart rate variability biofeedback, Insomnia disorders, Patients with cancer, resonance frequency breathing, home-based therapy, self-efficacy, Sleep Medication Adherence
Received: 17 Oct 2024; Accepted: 28 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hasuo, Mori, Matsuoka, Shimazu, Shizuma, Morita and Ishikawa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hideaki Hasuo, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, 573-1010, Osaka, Japan
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.