Study: Neurofeedback brain training can complement ADHD stimulant medications

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schoolSchool-based brain train­ing shown to alle­vi­ate ADHD (The Boston Globe):

“With more than one in 10 chil­dren diag­nosed with atten­tion deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der, par­ents and doc­tors alike have been eager to find alter­na­tives to pre­scrip­tion stim­u­lant med­ica­tions like Rital­in or Adder­all. Some of these options include com­put­er pro­grams that train the brain to increase atten­tion span and a ther­a­py called neu­ro­feed­back where a prac­ti­tion­er teach­es chil­dren how to keep their brain calm and focused…“We found that the children’s improve­ment on neu­ro­feed­back was equal whether they were on med­ica­tions or not” …the chil­dren who had the neu­ro­feed­back treat­ments did not increase their med­ica­tion dose over the course of a year, while the oth­er two groups increased their dosage by an aver­age of 9 mil­ligrams for the cog­ni­tive ther­a­py group and 13 mil­ligrams for the con­trol group, like­ly because of an increase in height and weight that required a high­er dose for effectiveness.

“This find­ing is extreme­ly impor­tant as we move for­ward because we can tell par­ents that neu­ro­feed­back could be used as an adjunct along with drugs or as an alter­na­tive,” Stein­er added.”

Study: Neu­ro­feed­back and cog­ni­tive atten­tion train­ing for chil­dren with atten­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der in schools (Jour­nal of Devel­op­men­tal & Behav­ioral Pedi­atrics). From the Abstract:

  • OBJECTIVE: To eval­u­ate the effi­ca­cy of 2 com­put­er atten­tion train­ing sys­tems admin­is­tered in school for chil­dren with atten­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD).
  • METHOD: Chil­dren in sec­ond and fourth grade with a diag­no­sis of ADHD (n = 104) were ran­dom­ly assigned to neu­ro­feed­back (NF) (n = 34), cog­ni­tive train­ing (CT) (n = 34), or con­trol (n = 36) conditions.
  • CONCLUSION: Neu­ro­feed­back made greater improve­ments in ADHD symp­toms com­pared to both the con­trol and CT con­di­tions. Thus, NF is a promis­ing atten­tion train­ing treat­ment inter­ven­tion for chil­dren with ADHD.

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