Traditional Treatment Methods: Anorexia and Bulimia

1
Traditional Treatment Methods Anorexia and
Bulimia

• Family/Individual therapy and Cognitive
  Behavioral therapy
• Less than 50 recovery- for Anorexics
• about 50 recovery- Bulimia
• Family Therapy- 30-50 Anorexics relapse after 1
  year.
• Although traditional treatment is less than 50
  successful, many treatment facilities still use
  these methods and the patients have little chance
  of recovering.
• Mortality rates can be as high as 25 for
  anorexics.
• The usefulness of traditional theory and
  treatments??

2
The Karolinska Method

• Treatment Plan of Cecilia Bergh, Ph.D. and Per
  Sodersten, Ph.D.
• Anorexic patients set individual weight gain
  goals
• no less than 4.4 lb gain at a goal
• once that weight was reached the patient set a
  new goal
• Patients ate 3 meals per day- 1 meal with food
  weighed on a scale
• The scale recorded weight of the food eaten from
  the plate so the researchers knew how much of the
  food each patient consumed.
• patients were taught to eat slowly and trained
  to report their satiety level in effect,
  re-learning how to eat properly and recognize
  proper fullness sensations

3
Karolinska Method cont.

• every minute patients reported their level of
  satiety on scale from (0 10).
• 0 none at all 10- extremely strong
• gradually increased amount of food eaten
• After each meal patients rested for 1hr. in a
  warm room with a temperature that could be as
  high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Exercise was eliminated or limited to a slow
  walk around the clinic- increased exercise
  allowed once patient was in remission.

4
K Method Cont.

• Scheduled meals
• Breakfast 7-8 am
• Lunch 1130 am- 1230 pm
• Dinner 430-530 pm
• Snacks in between
• Social goals- increase social activity
• going to café with friends, school, jobs
• school- 1hr a day prior to remission
• No psychopharmacological drugs used for
  treatment

5
Patient Groups

• The 32 patients were randomly assigned to either
  the control group or the treatment group.
• 16- treatment group/ 16- control group
• The control group received no treatment except
  for the initial evaluation and patients waited
  for treatment an average of 17.5 months.
• Only 1 patient went into remission while waiting
  for treatment.
• The treatment group began the program on average
  about 1.3 months after the initial evaluation.

6
Remission of Symptoms

• Remission a patient no longer meets the
  criteria for an eating disorder. Also included
  in the definition
• body weight, psychological profile, and lab
  tests all had to be normal, and food and dieting
  could no longer be a problem for the patient.
• patients also had to be back in school or
  working and socially active.
• Remission rates
• 14 out of 16 (88) patients in the treatment
  group entered into remission after an average of
  14.4 months.
• A follow-up 22 months after the patient entered
  remission showed 76 of the patients still in
  remission.

7
Second Study

• In a second study of 168 patients
• 145 patients entered remission or approximately
  90 83 within 12 months of treatment and 62 in
  just 7 months.
• Of the 83 patients- approx. 90 (75/83) returned
  for the follow-up at 12 months post treatment
• These results show that most of the patients who
  entered this treatment program recovered from
  their eating disorder.