nonpharmacological

Trend: Rethinking (and treating) chronic pain as a brain disease

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Can stim­u­lat­ing the brain treat chron­ic pain? (Sci­ence Daily):

“We’ve pub­lished numer­ous brain stim­u­la­tion papers over sev­er­al years, and we always learn some­thing impor­tant,” said senior author Flavio Frohlich, PhD, direc­tor of the Car­oli­na Cen­ter for Neu­rostim­u­la­tion and asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try. “But this is the first time we’ve stud­ied chron­ic pain, and this is the only time all three ele­ments of a study lined up per­fect­ly. We suc­cess­ful­ly tar­get­ed a spe­cif­ic brain region, we enhanced or restored that region’s activ­i­ty, and we cor­re­lat­ed that enhance­ment with a sig­nif­i­cant decrease in symp­toms” Keep on reading

Study: EEG-augmented brain training shows promise as first-line treatment for ADHD

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Atentiv_System_PrototypeNov­el Brain Train­ing Game May Reduce Kids’ ADHD Symp­toms (Med­space):

“A nov­el cog­ni­tive train­ing com­put­er game that uses a child’s own brain waves to improve con­cen­tra­tion may reduce symp­toms of atten­tion-deficit/hy­per­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD), say US researchers.

Inves­ti­ga­tors used a nov­el feed-for­ward mod­el­ing (FFM) sys­tem, which…is based on a com­put­er cog­ni­tive train­ing game in which atten­tion is required to move an avatar through the game. The game was cal­i­brat­ed using an elec­troen­cephalo­gram (EEG) head­band with three frontal sen­sors to cre­ate a mod­el of atten­tion and inat­ten­tion states. [Read more…] about Study: EEG-aug­ment­ed brain train­ing shows promise as first-line treat­ment for ADHD

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