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Frank Duffy
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Frank Duffy, MD, Neurologist,
Head of the Neuroimaging Department and of Neuroimaging Research at
Boston Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School Professor,
conducted an independent review of the literature on neurofeedback
for Clinical Electroencephalography (2000). He summarized his
findings as follows:
“The literature, which lacks
any negative study of substance, suggests that EEG biofeedback
therapy should play a major therapeutic role in many difficult
areas. In my opinion, if any medication had demonstrated such a wide
spectrum of efficacy, it would be universally accepted and widely
used. "
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Katie Campbell Daley
Quote
In a recent paper Update on
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder published in Current
Opinion in Pediatrics Katie Campbell Daley reviewed the research
and practice standards on treatment of ADHD. Dr. Campbell serves on
the staff of the Department of Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston
and in the Department of Pediatrics of the Harvard Medical School.
She concluded:
"Overall, these findings
support the use of multi-modal treatment, including medication,
parent/school counseling, and EEG biofeedback, in the long term
management of ADHD, with EEG biofeedback in particular providing a
sustained effect even without stimulant treatment...parents
interested in non-psychopharmacologic treatment can pursue the use
of complementary and alternative therapy. The therapy most
promising by recent clinical trials appears to be EEG biofeedback."
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Child and Adolescent
Psychiatric Clinics of North America
A recent special issue of Child
and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America was devoted to emerging interventions that affect brain
function. Neurofeedback was featured in seven of the ten chapters in
the volume. The volume editors provided an overview and clinical
perspective on all the approaches presented. About neurofeedback
they concluded:
“EEG biofeedback meets the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry criteria for
clinical guideline (CG) for treatment of ADHD, seizure disorders,
anxiety (OCD, GAD, PTSD, phobias), depression, reading disabilities,
and addictive disorders. This suggests that EEG biofeedback should
always be considered as an intervention for these disorders by the
clinician."
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Vincent J. Monastra
ADHD Study cited by WebMD
WebMD says
that, although prescribing drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall are
the most common way of managing ADHD -- and bring improvement in
about 80% of patients, says the American Psychiatric Association -
they are not without problems. Many children taking them suffer side
effects such as sleep problems, weight loss, jitters, and stomach
upset, and nearly half of those with some types of ADHD don't
respond to the drugs at all. Some experts are also concerned with
their long-term use.
A study, published in the
December, 2002, issue of Applied Psychophysiology and
Biofeedback, indicates that ADHD kids who had weekly sessions of
traditional biofeedback therapy for a year were able to reduce or
eliminate their medication - and maintained the same level of
improvement in focus and concentration as when they had been on drug
therapy.
Vincent J. Monastra, PhD, of the FPI
Attention Disorders Clinic in Endicott, N.Y., studied 100 children
between 6-19 with ADHD for a year, all of whom were taking Ritalin
and had school and family counseling. But half of the children also
had weekly EEG biofeedback therapy, in which they were hooked to a
device that measures the activity of their brain waves. "At the
conclusion of treatment, all of those who underwent biofeedback were
able to cut their medications by at least half - and still enjoy the
improvements they got from the drugs. And about 40% were able to
discontinue their medication," he tells WebMD. "The kids who didn't
get biofeedback needed to continue medication to sustain
improvements."
Why biofeedback, which has shown
success in treating a host of conditions including migraine and
other headaches, chronic pain, digestive problems, hypertension and
substance abuse? "Studies show that about 90% of ADHD kids have an
under-arousal in activity in the front lobe -- the region of the
brain that is involved in sustained attention, focus, concentration,
and problem-solving," Monastra says. With biofeedback, the theory
goes, ADHD patients can be "taught" to bolster activity in these
brain areas.
In these sessions, Monastra's study
participants were placed in front of a video screen whose characters
moved only when the children produced a short but sustained burst of
activity in those areas of the brain thought to be under-aroused. In
essence, the 51 patients who got biofeedback played a video game
that continued only when they exercised the portion of their brain
that is deficient in the ability to focus and stay attentive.
"It's like physical therapy for the
brain," explains Monastra, who has studied biofeedback's effect on
ADHD for several years. "Every time they produced a half-second
burst of activity over the frontal lobe, they were reinforced by the
screen to continue."
After a year of study, the children
in both groups showed improvement in attentiveness from medication
and other treatments. But what happened when the researcher abruptly
stopped their medication for a full week?
"If you didn't have the biofeedback and I took way
your medicine," says Monastra, "you were back to square one -- your
scores from a very thorough evaluation and medical exam indicated
that you had significant problems. But if you had received
biofeedback, scores on behavioral ratings of teachers and parents,
scores on attention and EEG tests measuring brain activity remained
in the normal range of what had been achieved with the drugs. In
other words, the kids who got biofeedback maintained the gain they
achieved with medication, even without the medication."
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Please note that LENS
neurofeedback typically takes one third to one half the number of
sessions of traditional EEG biofeedback/neurofeedback, sometimes
even less.
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Christina Gibbs, LCSW, is utterly blown away
by the quick results of LENS:
"...I have to say
thank you to Len [Ochs, developer of the LENS system]. Having been a
traditional NF [Neurofeedback] practitioner for the past few years,
I was beginning to get very frustrated with the length of time it
was taking for my clients to get results. I am now so
utterly blown away by the quick results my clients
are getting with the LENS. It is absolutely phenomenal and has
rejuvinated myself and my practice."
"I have a client that
was referred to me with 10/10 for both anxiety and depression with
daily SI [Suicidal Idiation] (no plan), perseverative thoughts, not
sleeping through the night, medicating with ETOH [Ethyl Alcohol, or
grain alcohol] and had a p/c in for a
psych eval. when she called me. Within 2 sessions (NF Map and 2
feedback sites) she is a 0/10 for both anxiety & depression,
feeling hopeful and happy, no SI, clear thoughts, no longer self
medicating and sleeping through the night. We completed her 4th
session today. I taught her RSA breathing which she continues at
home and we do Heart Math every session as well. We both agreed that
she should continue a bit longer until she is feeling more stable."
"I have an 11 y/o that completed 35 sessions of traditional
NF before switching to the LENS when I recently purchased it. We
were getting small, slow gains but the LENS took him to a whole new
level. He has reached most of his goals and told his psychiatrist
today that the "new NF" he is doing is better than any medication he
could prescribe! Mom was blown away to hear her son articulate the
benefits of LENS to the psychiatrist and intelligently inform him
why he no longer needs stimulant medication. He enjoys coming in and
says he "loves the feeling" he gets from LENS. I have pointed out
that he has reached his initial goals but they would like to
continue."
"... I am truly amazed by the
results. Thank you!"
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