alternative ADHD treatments

Survey of 2500 families finds what ADHD treatments seem to work/ not work as applied in the real world

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Cred­it: CDC Vital Signs

While care­ful­ly con­trolled clin­i­cal tri­als are essen­tial for estab­lish­ing sci­en­tif­ic sup­port for dif­fer­ent ADHD treat­ments, it is also impor­tant to exam­ine how par­ents feel about the treat­ments they actu­al­ly select for their child.

How par­ents feel about ADHD treat­ments they have tried for their child pro­vides an impor­tant com­ple­ment to pub­lished clin­i­cal tri­als data, and can also help guide par­ents’ treat­ment choic­es. [Read more…] about Sur­vey of 2500 fam­i­lies finds what ADHD treat­ments seem to work/ not work as applied in the real world

Study: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) + Medication outperforms CBT alone to treat ADHD symptoms among adults. At the same time…

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adult_adhdAlthough med­ica­tion is the pri­ma­ry treat­ment for adults with ADHD, and has good empir­i­cal sup­port, many adults would rather not take it. For these adults with ADHD, it would be help­ful to know whether med­ica­tion is like­ly to pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits above and beyond those they would gain from well-con­duct­ed ther­a­py, or whether they are like­ly to derive rough­ly equiv­a­lent ben­e­fits from ther­a­py alone. [Read more…] about Study: Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT) + Med­ica­tion out­per­forms CBT alone to treat ADHD symp­toms among adults. At the same time…

Update: Test your stress level with this fun brain teaser

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pressure-performance-curve-400x300—

Time for Sharp­Brains’ July 2014 e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a wealth of thought-pro­vok­ing insights, sci­ence reports…and this fun brain teas­er to deter­mine your stress lev­el.

New think­ing:

New tools:

New sci­ence:

Final­ly, you may also want to try this teas­er to test your cog­ni­tive bias­es.

Enjoy, and have a great month of August!

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

Physical exercise as ADHD treatment: Necessary but not sufficient

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Can exer­cise reduce behav­ior prob­lems and enhance cog­ni­tion in chil­dren with ADHD?

Results from mul­ti­ple stud­ies indi­cate that exer­cise mit­i­gates aging-relat­ed declines in cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing and that it may enhance cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing in old­er adults. Exer­cise has also been shown to be [Read more…] about Phys­i­cal exer­cise as ADHD treat­ment: Nec­es­sary but not sufficient

The New York Times starts to pay attention: Exercising The Mind to Treat Attention Deficits

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mind_childExer­cis­ing The Mind to Treat Atten­tion Deficits (The New York Times):

“Poor plan­ning, wan­der­ing atten­tion and trou­ble inhibit­ing impuls­es all sig­ni­fy laps­es in cog­ni­tive con­trol. Now a grow­ing stream of research sug­gests that strength­en­ing this men­tal mus­cle, usu­al­ly with exer­cis­es in [Read more…] about The New York Times starts to pay atten­tion: Exer­cis­ing The Mind to Treat Atten­tion Deficits

Study: Families’ Perspectives on ADHD and its Treatment

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In 2005 the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics (AAP) began an ini­tia­tive to pro­mote an approach to care among its mem­bers in which “…the pedi­atric team works in part­ner­ship with a child and a child’s fam­i­ly to assure that all of the med­ical and non-med­ical needs of the patient are met.” A crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant focus of this approach is the role of the fam­i­ly and child — as devel­op­men­tal­ly appro­pri­ate — in the devel­op­ment of an over­all plan of care.

This shared deci­sion-mak­ing approach is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for con­di­tions like ADHD where there is not a sin­gle treat­ment that is the most appro­pri­ate and pre­ferred option for all patients. How­ev­er, [Read more…] about Study: Fam­i­lies’ Per­spec­tives on ADHD and its Treatment