The effect of yoga and meditation on the psychometric factors of a quadriplegic person. A case study

Abstract

Introduction: Anxiety, worry and lack of self-confidence are emotions that are a scourge of our time. The unpleasant feelings are of interest to various communities of science, which study ways to manage and deal with them. One of these ways is the practice of Yoga and Meditation. Past studies have shown that yoga and meditation can help control and reduce stress, as well as increase self-confidence and self-image. Looking at the literature on quadriplegia, it was found that there is a lack of studies investigating the effect of yoga and meditation practice in relation to tetraplegia.
Aim: This research investigates how a quadriplegic person performs a Yoga program and the effects of Yoga and Meditation on their psychology in terms of anxiety, self-confidence, and optimism towards life.
Material and Method: The sample of the study was an adult quadriplegic man with an intense daily schedule and workload, resulting in pressure and stress being intense emotions in his daily life. The following were used as assessment tools: (a) the Greek version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) questionnaire and (b) the translated version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-SF with the “back-to-back translation” method, before and after the two-month intervention. The statistical analysis was done with SPSS.
Results: By analyzing the initial and final answers of the trainee to the questionnaires used a great improvement was observed on a psychological level. More specifically, the DASS 42 questionnaire shows that the factors of anxiety, depression and anxiety studied have improved considerably, as the resulting averages are reduced. More specifically, the average anxiety from 1. 14 reached 0. 07, the average depression from 1. 07 fell to 0. 07 and finally the stress factor from 1. 5 ended up at 0. 36. In addition, from the PANAS-20 questionnaire we conclude that the intervention had a positive effect as most positive factors increased as opposed to negative factors which decreased. More specifically, the positive effect score before the two-month intervention was 3. 70 and reached 4. 50 immediately after its end. In contrast to the negative impact score, which fell from 2. 20 to 1. 40.
Conclusions: Evidence shows that yoga and meditation have a positive effect on the psychology of a quadriplegic person, as it reduces worry, anxiety, depressive tendencies, and other negative emotions while increasing positive emotions.