The Effects of Benson and Progressive Muscle Relaxation on Pain Intensity of Patients

Today, more than ever, the need to use complementary therapies, such as relaxation methods, is felt in the plan of treatment and care of patients.  But so far, the present study has not been conducted to compare different relaxation strategies in order to find the most preferred one. The aim of this paper is to review articles done in the field of comparison of two Benson and progressive muscle relaxation.

This article is a review research which is conducted based on library studies and search via internet databases of MEDLINE, PubMed, SID and Magiran, over the years 2000 to 2015.

Considering the findings of the selected previous studies, one can generally perceive the positive effects of the two relaxation techniques (Benson's and Progressive muscle relaxation) on pain alleviation. Furthermore, it seems like these two methods have significantly positive effects by incorporating similar mechanisms to alleviate the pain among patients of hemodialysis, heart surgery, Caesarean section, Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc.

Discussion and Conclusion:

Using these two techniques in alleviating patients' pains is recommended because of the positive effects of these two methods. However, due to the fact that no studies have been conducted to analyze and compare the extent of control and pain alleviation among patients, it is not clear which one is more preferable. It is recommended that more researches to be done in this regard in order to recognize and discover more efficient models