Meditation, Public Health and Speech Language Pathology and Audiology: a dialogue in construction

Abstract

Meditation in the West has been the focus of interest of several researchers due to the benefits it provides to the physical and mental health, with major repercussions in quality of life and well-being. Studies point to the importance of mental activity in the physiological processes, and the relation of interdependence between mind and body. This fact, in turn, reflects the need for mental activity care, rather than only body care, to be included in health care. This work aims at carrying out a review of the scientific articles on meditation and communication disorders, discussing the implications to Speech Language Pathology and Audiology. We searched the data bases Medline, PUBMED, Scielo and Lilacs – for articles published until April 2015. We found only seven articles that associate Speech Language Pathology and Audiology and meditation, as opposed to the large number of articles on meditation in the health area. Those articles highlight the need for more studies in this field, and suggest a possible benefit in the use of meditation as a complementary therapy for patients with various communication disorders. The present work also aims at presenting a scenario of the scientific studies that have been carried out on meditation – an Integrative and Complementary Practice which, for decades, has been the focus of interest of several foreign researchers and, more recently, has been standing out in the Brazilian scientific production.