Traditional African Healing Ceremony in a U.S. Population

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Cancer; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; Anxiety; Depression
• Interventions: Behavioral: Movement to rhythm

• Registration Number: NCT01873482
• Lead Sponsor: Duke University

Brief Summary

Pre-agricultural societies almost universally used healing ceremonies that involved reverence, rhythm and dance in the presence of a healer. It is believed that we are "wired" for such experiences and they foster an integrative mode of consciousness similar to that of mindfulness based stress reduction, which has been shown to have therapeutic effects in a variety of conditions. Collaborator Ava Lavonne Vinesett of the Duke Dance Program has developed a healing ceremony based in sub-Saharan African traditions. The investigators plan is to have 25 subjects with a variety of clinical conditions participate in this ceremony. Subjects will then be asked to write a commentary about their experience and to participate in a focus group discussion. It is anticipated that the study will give us some idea of how promising this approach would be and what kinds of patients might benefit. Safety issues are minimal and include the possibility of injury (though the dancing is not strenuous) and psychological distress.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2013-06-05
• Study First Submitted QC: 2013-06-06
• Study First Posted: 2013-06-10
• Study Start: 2014-05
• Primary Completion: 2014-05
• Status Verified: 2014-10
• Last Update Submitted: 2014-10-31
• Last Update Posted: 2014-11-02

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 17

Inclusion Criteria

• Age 25 to 65 with one of the diagnoses listed above or with 8 visits to their provider in the last year and with no diagnosis of chronic illness.

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Exclusion Criteria

• physical disability making participation difficult and previous experience with a similar ceremony, for instance while growing up in Africa.

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Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Movement with rhythm	Movement to rhythm	Subjects will move for 1 hour in time to the Congolese rhythm called Zebola.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Report from each participant as to whether they found the experience positive, neutral or negative.	During the first hour after the intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
written narrative of experience	During the first hour after the intervention

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Duke University; 🇺🇸 Durham, North Carolina, United States