behavior-therapy

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

by

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

On neurons, lifelong learning, meditation, humility, “empty brain calories” and more

by

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 12 fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and open questions–and the beau­ti­ful image above.

#1. “With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of.” – Sil­via Rodriguez-Roza­da, Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, Ham­burg. Award-win­ning image shows neu­roimag­ing progress in a century

#2. One more rea­son why life­long learn­ing mat­ters: Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neuropathology

#3. It’s Fri­day; per­fect time to make some fun and healthy week­end plans: How feel­ing awe in nature can spur men­tal well-being and per­son­al growth

#4. Not a bad idea either: On cut­ting “emp­ty brain calo­ries” by read­ing a book instead of social media

#5. “…humil­i­ty helps peo­ple let go of defen­sive­ness, take in infor­ma­tion that chal­lenges their polit­i­cal views, and see the human­i­ty in peo­ple on the oth­er side of the polit­i­cal spec­trum. Though it’s not always easy to embrace—especially for those who wrong­ful­ly equate it with weak­ness or a lack of conviction—humility may be what we des­per­ate­ly need right now in the Unit­ed States.” On per­cep­tion, cog­ni­tive bias and cul­ti­vat­ing humil­i­ty ahead of next week’s vote

#6. “When it feels like the world is crash­ing down around them, giv­ing young peo­ple a moment to feel, express, and receive grat­i­tude can help—and that in itself is some­thing to be grate­ful for.” Study: A com­bined teach­ing + app grat­i­tude pro­gram helps ado­les­cents address anx­i­ety and improve men­tal health

#7. To hon­or ADHD Aware­ness Month, let’s address this most impor­tant ques­tion: What should come first to treat ADHD in chil­dren, behav­ior ther­a­py or stim­u­lant medication?

#8. Debate: Can mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion be harm­ful? Two new stud­ies answer the ques­tion in appar­ent­ly oppo­site but actu­al­ly quite com­ple­men­tary ways.

#9. Study: Over-the-counter “brain enhance­ment” sup­ple­ments in the US found both to a) con­tain mul­ti­ple unap­proved drugs and b) lack some ingre­di­ents list­ed on the label. Your take?

#10. “…new study fund­ed by the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health that aims to recruit 30,000 vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in a mem­o­ry train­ing study that com­pares mul­ti­ple approach­es to train work­ing mem­o­ry”: Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

#11. “Vir­tu­al real­i­ty is a promis­ing skills-based behav­ioral med­i­cine that has been shown to have high patient engage­ment and sat­is­fac­tion,” said Beth Dar­nall, PhD, AppliedVR’s chief sci­ence advi­sor. “How­ev­er, chron­ic pain patients to date have had very lim­it­ed access to it, so we’re excit­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing with the FDA to devel­op our plat­form and get it into the mar­ket faster.” The FDA clears Applied­VR head­set to help treat fibromyal­gia and chron­ic pain

#12. “Hav­ing run a media com­pa­ny in a tough mar­ket with a young, mil­len­ni­al work­force, we wit­nessed first-hand how there was a com­plete lack of invest­ment in help­ing this gen­er­a­tion with their men­tal health in a way that they’re used to: a com­mu­ni­ty prod­uct that is mobile-first and video-led. We want to make the world a hap­pi­er place by mak­ing work­ing on your men­tal health as nor­mal as going to the gym.” — Adnan Ebrahim, co-founder and CEO of Mind­Labs. What will the ‘Pelo­ton for men­tal health’ look like five years from now? And, who will devel­op it?

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy November,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

What should come first to treat ADHD in children, behavior therapy or stimulant medication?

by

Stim­u­lant med­ica­tion treat­ment and behav­ior ther­a­py are cur­rent­ly the two child ADHD treat­ments with the strongest research sup­port. How­ev­er, when par­ents begin treat­ment for their child, or when pro­fes­sion­als are ini­ti­at­ing treat­ment with a new client, there is no research to guide the deci­sion of which approach to begin with.

Is it bet­ter to start with med­ica­tion treat­ment and add behav­ior ther­a­py if need­ed? Or, should behav­ior ther­a­py come first with med­ica­tion added if the child’s response is not suf­fi­cient? Or, is it always prefer­able to begin with com­bined treat­ment? [Read more…] about What should come first to treat ADHD in chil­dren, behav­ior ther­a­py or stim­u­lant medication?

Initial study finds promise and limitations in using virtual reality (VR) to treat ADHD

by

___

Giv­en the lim­i­ta­tions of exist­ing evi­dence-based ADHD treat­ments, i.e., stim­u­lant med­ica­tion and behav­ior ther­a­py — research on nov­el inter­ven­tion approach­es con­tin­ues to be important.

Cog­ni­tive train­ing is one such approach that has been sug­gest­ed as a poten­tial adjunct or even replace­ment for med­ica­tion treat­ment. While cog­ni­tive train­ing takes dif­fer­ent forms, e.g., com­put­er­ized atten­tion train­ing, work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing, the basic idea is that by repeat­ed­ly prac­tic­ing cog­ni­tive tasks relat­ed to atten­tion, one’s abil­i­ty to focus and attend will improve. In oth­er words, [Read more…] about Ini­tial study finds promise and lim­i­ta­tions in using vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) to treat ADHD

Consistent use of ADHD medication may stunt growth by 2 inches, large study finds

by

___

The Mul­ti­modal Treat­ment Study of ADHD (MTA Study) is the largest ADHD treat­ment study ever con­duct­ed — near­ly 600 7–9‑year-old chil­dren with ADHD were ran­dom­ly assigned to one of four interventions:

1) Care­ful­ly mon­i­tored med­ica­tion treatment;

2) Inten­sive behav­ior therapy;

3) Med­ica­tion Treat­ment com­bined with Behav­ior Ther­a­py; or

4) Com­mu­ni­ty Care (par­ents obtained what­ev­er treat­ment they desired).

After 14 months, results indi­cat­ed that [Read more…] about Con­sis­tent use of ADHD med­ica­tion may stunt growth by 2 inch­es, large study finds

Studies reinforce the critical importance of ADHD treatment monitoring

by

__________

As the new school year approach­es, let me high­light the essen­tial val­ue of ADHD treat­ment mon­i­tor­ing. Even when a child’s treat­ment has been going well, response to treat­ment can change over time. This is true for med­ica­tion treat­ment, or any oth­er treat­ment a child is receiv­ing. By reg­u­lar­ly mon­i­tor­ing how a child is doing at school, par­ents and pro­fes­sion­als are alert­ed [Read more…] about Stud­ies rein­force the crit­i­cal impor­tance of ADHD treat­ment monitoring