Touch medicine: bridging the gap between recent insights from touch research and clinical medicine and its special significance for the treatment of affective disorders.

Interpersonal touch represents the primal sensory experience between humans, fostering social bonding from the cradle to the death bed. In recent decades "affective touch" has been intensely studied, stimulated by the discovery of a population of mechanosensitive unmyelinated C-tactile afferents in mammalian skin. A lack of touch in childhood is associated with negative consequences for psychosocial and physical health and the benefits of professional touch techniques in the prevention and treatment of various diseases have been shown over and over again in clinical studies.

Dysfunctional self-reported interoception predicts residual symptom burden of fatigue in major depressive disorder: an observational study.

Background: Fatigue is a core symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD) and is frequently refractory to antidepressant treatment, leading to unfavorable clinical/psychosocial outcomes. Dysfunctional self-reported interoception (i.e.

Exploring Associations between C-Reactive Protein and Self-Reported Interoception in Major Depressive Disorder: A Bayesian Analysis.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with dysfunctional self-reported interoception (i.e., abnormal perception of the body's physiological state) and systemic inflammation, both of which adversely affect treatment response.

[Touch Medicine - a complementary therapeutic approach exemplified by the treatment of depression].

Skin-to-skin-contact presents the earliest sensory experience of men and animals. Deprivation of age-relevant touch experiences during infancy results in compromised psychosocial and biological development. The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for the discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.

Validation of the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA-2) questionnaire in hospitalized patients with major depressive disorder.

Objectives: Interoception refers to the sensation, interpretation, and integration of internal somatic signals. Abnormalities in self-reported interoception are prevalent features of major depressive disorder (MDD) and may affect treatment outcomes. In the present study, we investigated the psychometric properties of the revised eight-dimensional and 37-item Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire (the MAIA-2) in a severely depressed sample, after translating two updated scales (Not-Distracting, Not-Worrying) into German.

Touch Research-Quo Vadis? A Plea for High-Quality Clinical Trials.

Recently, the issue of a lack of interpersonal touch has gained much public interest due to the social distancing ordered by the authorities in the present pandemic situation [...

Can changes in multidimensional self-reported interoception be considered as outcome predictors in severely depressed patients? A moderation and mediation analysis.

Objective: Somatic complaints (e.g. pain) and abnormal self-reported interoception (e.

Are the antidepressive effects of massage therapy mediated by restoration of impaired interoceptive functioning? A novel hypothetical mechanism.

Interoception is an individual person's sense of the physiological condition of his/her entire body. Recent research has shown that depression is associated with impaired interoceptive accuracy. Treatments that can improve disturbed interoception are scarce in clinical practice and could complement established therapies.

Major Depressive Disorder Is Associated with Impaired Interoceptive Accuracy: A Systematic Review.

Interoception is the sense of the physiological condition of the entire body. Impaired interoception has been associated with aberrant activity of the insula in major depressive disorder (MDD) during heartbeat perception tasks. Despite clinical relevance, studies investigating interoceptive impairments in MDD have never been reviewed systematically according to the guidelines of the PRISMA protocol, and therefore we collated studies that assessed accuracy in detecting heartbeat sensations (interoceptive accuracy, IAc) in MDD (databases: PubMed/Medline, PsycINFO, and PsycARTICLES).

[ICF-Checklist to Evaluate Inclusion of Elderlies with Intellectual Disability - Psychometric Properties].

Background: An instrument should have been developed to measure participation as one possible criterion to evaluate inclusion of elderly people with intellectual disability. The ICF was utilized, because participation is one part of health related functioning, respectively disability. Furthermore ICF includes environmental factors (contextual factors) and attaches them an essentially influence on health related functioning, in particular on participation.