Svitlana Volos – EMDR Specialist at Balance Stress Management and Therapy
ADHD/ADD is now the most frequently diagnosed childhood mental health and behavior disorder with an estimated 11% of American school-aged children (and nearly 20% of all high school boys) currently having a medical diagnosis of ADHD. One in ten American children is on stimulant medication. In fact, the global use of ADHD medication rose 300% from 1993 to 2000.
Biology of ADHD/ADD. While the exact causes of ADHD remain unclear, most researchers agree that it is a largely inherited disorder of the brain functining, mostly in the frontal lobe.
The functions of the frontal lobes allow the person to focus, pay attention, concentrate, control impulses and emotions, exercise judgment, plan, organize, and regulate motor behavior (i.e. inhibit impulses and sit still). The front part of the brain is the brain’s break.When brain activity there is low, people get themselves into trouble because they say things that might hurt someone else’s feelings and do things without thinking. All of us do that at some point in life when we didn’t sleep or had a bad day, but for people who have ADD it’s been a part of their life for most of their existence.
Brain imaging research has demonstrated that the brains of ADHD children and adults can best be described as “sleepy brains”, as their brains are typically like the brains of sleepy “normals”.
Using advanced EEG in the 1980s, Joel Lubar, PhD introduced the first evidence demonstrating that the brains of children and teenagers with ADD had decreased activity during a concentration task. He found that there were more slow brain waves in their frontal lobes, instead of the usual fast brain wave activity with concentration that was seen in the majority of the control group.
Stimulant medication and behavior therapy (BT) are the two most widely accepted treatments for ADHD, but the actual evidence is that these treatments fail to result in sustained benefit for the vast majority of children who receive them. Furthermore, even during initial treatment, a full third or more of children do not respond adequately to ADHD medications and/or experience significant adverse side-effects from these medications.
We’ve seen a revolution in brain science in the last 20 years. We went from believing that the brain was fixed, that you had a certain number of brain cells at birth to now understanding that you are creating new brain cells and new connections at any age.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) biofeedback, also known as Neurofeedback, has proven to be a highly effective alternative treatment for children and adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Neurofeedback has also shown itself to be both compatible with and an effective enhancement to behavior therapy.
Neurofeedback treatment of ADHD essentially trains the brain to engage self-regulatory processes to normalize brainwaves; especially in those brain regions thought to be responsible for attention and behavioral control. Essentially, the brain learns to decrease production of slow -waves activity and increase fast-wave activity in the brain.
There is now over 40 years of accumulated research comprising literally hundreds of published studies documenting the efficacy of Neurofeedback in the treatment of many thousands of ADHD children and adults. Collectively these reports strongly support the contention that Neurofeedback is effective in reducing the core symptoms of ADHD. In many ways, Neurofeedback is an ideal therapy modality because it is effective, non-invasive and safe.
Neurofeedback has been shown to be as effective as medications in the treatment of ADHD. In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed EEG neurofeedback with the “highest level of evidence-based support” for the treatment of ADHD.
The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback reports that when Neurofeedback is used to treat ADHD, up to 80% of patients show “significant improvement in the condition and a marked reduction in medication requirements.”
Typical Changes in ADHD:
- Improved Behavior
- Improved School Performance 1-2 grade levels.
- Increase IQ by 5-15 points.
- Reduced Medications
(Hammond, 2006)
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.”
Never give up on the child—there’s always hope. There are so many great people doing so many great innovative things, that parents can learn how to change their life and get their children to be who they always knew they would be.
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