computerized

The FDA clears two computerized cognitive tests to assist in medical evaluations following brain injury or concussion

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impact testingFDA allows mar­ket­ing of first-of-kind com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive tests to help assess cog­ni­tive skills after a head injury (FDA news release):

“The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion today per­mit­ted mar­ket­ing of two new devices to assess a patient’s cog­ni­tive func­tion imme­di­ate­ly after a sus­pect­ed brain injury or con­cus­sion. The Imme­di­ate Post-Con­cus­sion Assess­ment and Cog­ni­tive Test­ing (ImPACT) and ImPACT Pedi­atric are the first med­ical devices per­mit­ted [Read more…] about The FDA clears two com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive tests to assist in med­ical eval­u­a­tions fol­low­ing brain injury or concussion

New & Excellent Review of Computerized Cognitive Training with Older Adults

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“With­in 20 years, old­er adults will account for almost 25% of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion. From a health­care per­spec­tive, a major con­cern with an aging pop­u­la­tion is a high­er preva­lence of age-relat­ed impair­ment in cog­ni­tive func­tion. This expand­ing aging pop­u­la­tion high­lights the need to iden­ti­fy quick, effec­tive, low-cost solu­tions to delay patho­log­i­cal cog­ni­tive decline asso­ci­at­ed with aging. Devel­op­ing inter­ven­tions that can pre­serve cog­ni­tive func­tion can also help to main­tain qual­i­ty of life and inde­pen­dence well into old age. With the help of new tech­nol­o­gy, [Read more…] about New & Excel­lent Review of Com­put­er­ized Cog­ni­tive Train­ing with Old­er Adults

Report: Cognitive Testing Program Fails Soldiers, Leaving Brain Injuries Undetected

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Test­ing Pro­gram Fails Sol­diers, Leav­ing Brain Injuries Unde­tect­ed (ProP­ub­li­ca):

“In 2007, with road­side bombs explod­ing across Iraq, Con­gress moved to improve care for sol­diers who had suf­fered one of the war’s sig­na­ture wounds, trau­mat­ic brain injury.

Law­mak­ers passed a mea­sure requir­ing the mil­i­tary to test sol­diers’ brain func­tion before they deployed and again when they returned. The test was sup­posed to ensure that sol­diers received prop­er treatment.

Instead, an inves­ti­ga­tion by ProP­ub­li­ca and NPR has found, the test­ing pro­gram has failed to deliv­er on its promise, offer­ing sol­diers the appear­ance of help, but not the real­i­ty. [Read more…] about Report: Cog­ni­tive Test­ing Pro­gram Fails Sol­diers, Leav­ing Brain Injuries Undetected

Study: Music Training Can Enhance Verbal Intelligence and Executive Function

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Very inter­est­ing new study pub­lished in Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence: Short-Term Music Train­ing Enhances Ver­bal Intel­li­gence and Exec­u­tive Func­tion.

Abstract: Researchers have designed train­ing meth­ods that can be used to improve men­tal health and to test the effi­ca­cy of edu­ca­tion pro­grams. How­ev­er, few stud­ies have demon­strat­ed broad trans­fer from such train­ing to per­for­mance on untrained cog­ni­tive activ­i­ties. Here we report the effects of two inter­ac­tive com­put­er­ized train­ing pro­grams devel­oped for preschool chil­dren: one for music and one for visu­al art. After only 20 days of train­ing, [Read more…] about Study: Music Train­ing Can Enhance Ver­bal Intel­li­gence and Exec­u­tive Function

Brain Training for Babies: Hope, Hype, Both?

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Train­ing the brain is pos­si­ble because of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty. Our dai­ly expe­ri­ences can trig­ger neu­ro­plas­tic changes in the brain, such as the growth of new brain cells (neu­rons) and new con­nec­tions (synaps­es) between neu­rons. Plas­tic­i­ty is observed at all ages but is at its peak dur­ing brain devel­op­ment, as a baby and then a child learns basic knowl­edge and skills nec­es­sary to sur­vive. We should thus expect that the brain of a baby could be eas­i­ly trained. This is what Wass and his col­leagues recent­ly demon­strat­ed in a new study with 11-month-old babies. [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing for Babies: Hope, Hype, Both?

Neurofeedback/ Quantitative EEG for ADHD diagnosis

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Like all psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, ADHD is diag­nosed based on the pres­ence of par­tic­u­lar behav­ioral symp­toms that are judged to cause sig­nif­i­cant impair­ment in an indi­vid­u­al’s func­tion­ing, and not on the results of a spe­cif­ic test. In fact, recent­ly pub­lished ADHD eval­u­a­tion guide­lines from the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics (AAP) explic­it­ly state that no par­tic­u­lar diag­nos­tic test should be rou­tine­ly used when eval­u­at­ing a child for ADHD.

While most ADHD experts would agree that no sin­gle test could or should be used in iso­la­tion to diag­nose ADHD, there are sev­er­al impor­tant rea­sons why the avail­abil­i­ty of an accu­rate objec­tive test would be useful.

First, many chil­dren do not receive a care­ful and com­pre­hen­sive assess­ment for ADHD but are instead diag­nosed with based on eval­u­a­tion pro­ce­dures that are far from optimal.

Sec­ond, although AAP guide­lines indi­cate that spe­cif­ic diag­nos­tic tests should not be rou­tine­ly used, many par­ents are con­cerned about the lack of objec­tive pro­ce­dures in their child’s eval­u­a­tion. In fact, many fam­i­lies do not pur­sue treat­ment for ADHD because the the absence of objec­tive eval­u­a­tion pro­ce­dures leads them to ques­tion the diag­no­sis. You can read a review of an inter­est­ing study on this issue at www.helpforadd.com/2006/january.htm

For these rea­sons an accu­rate and objec­tive diag­nos­tic test for ADHD could be of val­ue in many clin­i­cal sit­u­a­tions. Two impor­tant con­di­tions would have to be met for such a test to be useful.

First, it would have to be high­ly sen­si­tive to [Read more…] about Neurofeedback/ Quan­ti­ta­tive EEG for ADHD diagnosis