Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Neurofeedback for ADD - week 2 and hopeful

I believe it's because there are no long-term, wide studies that have shone any significant effect. There are lots of short-term ones, but nothing else, from what I've read.

Actually, this has been around for quite some time (it started in the 60's with experiments on cats!!!), in the previous link, one of the referenced studies went back 3 years later and found that all of the improvements had been sustained. That was in 2005. This site: http://www.aboutneurofeedback.com/ references the same researchers:

"Dr. Joel Lubar at the University of Tennessee and a few others have done long-term follow-up on clients. Dr. Lubar says they’ve followed ADD clients who’ve sustained their improvements from neurofeedback for 10-20 years."

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant published, peer-reviewed studies. There have been cases of great, long-term gains from neurofeedback. But the only currently accepted long-term treatment plan for ADHD is medication.

I am all for trying things like Neurofeedback, btw, so please don't confuse me! We are going to be trying CBT with DS8 here in a couple of weeks.

Considerable published, peer-reviewed studies exist, and APA (Psychologists) now accepts Neurofeedback as an efficacious treatment, according to a psychologist friend. I am a therapist working in a large public mental health clinic where we have been using this for over 7 years. Most kids have greatly reduced or eliminated meds if they were on them. Besides ADHD, we've had great success with a number of learning disabilities and mood/anxiety disorders. The current research on autism is showing dramatic improvements. Once I saw the power of this intervention -- with no negative effects in my experience -- I knew this had permanently changed my practice. You might enjoy reading Healing Young Brains.

Donna, would you please point us to some of the peer-reviewed studies, preferably ones with large samples? And is LMFT a professional designation?

DeeDee

A quick update:

DD has now completed 20 sessions and so far so good, the sleep improvements have stuck, DD continues to have control over when she goes to sleep (which is huge and in itself justifies the cost of the therapy to me).

After 10 sessions working on the front "executive functions" area (which resulted in better sleep?!), the therapist moved the monitors to the top of the head and started working on anxiety. DD said she got to play pac man where the game sped up if she was focusing correctly, and slowed or stopped if she was not.

The therapist said she is progressing well but she has not noticed any new effects good or bad. As DD pointed out, there is no baseline right now to tell if her "task completion" is improving since she is not in school or working at present. I will say that she seems happier and generally more pleasant to be around and easier to converse with (without the conversation jumping all over the place). She also seems more mature and far less irritable. I don't know whether this is a result of the NFT, CBT, proper sleep, simple aging or a combo of all of these things but it's all good!

I am curious why there haven't been any long term peer reviewed studies. I understand the treatment is not proprietary and as such there is no financial incentive in the USA, but I would think in countries with socialized medicine, it would be worth it for the potential savings on the costs of medication.

WARNING: In my search for studies, I have recently read some pretty scary stuff on other forums about individual cases of NFT gone wrong and as such, I would strongly caution against going to anyone that does not have a long verifiable track record of successfully using this type of treatment.

Also, it seems there are 2 types of treatment that may be called the same thing. The treatment my DD is receiving only involves feedback (observing her own brainwaves on the PC), I would run from any treatment that involved the actual introduction of stimulus to the brain.

Nik

Nik...
So glad to hear that the improvements are making life better all around.
Yippee!
Grinity

So glad to hear it's going well! We have 2 more weeks before CBT begins...

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, but thought I would chime in with our experience with NF. My daughter with ASD/Anxiety/OCD/Sensory issues and motor delays went twice a week for NF; we had just over 60 sessions, combined with interactive metronome and CBT.(I pretty much lived in that office for two years). We did see some improvement with attention(her problems with attention and organization stem from the information processing problems of AS, not ADD) and a HUGE improvement in anxiety. She still has an anxiety disorder, but she is able to "function" with a very mild medication(Buspar vs SSRIs)combined with daily yoga. If we had not done NF, I don't think we would have been able to avoid the SSRIs. We saw little improvement in social or motor skills, or sensory issues. I wouldn't hesitate to strongly recommend NF for ADD/ADHD or anxiety disorders, but would caution about the time and expense vs. payoff for AS. I hope all continues to go well for your child, and agree this is very exciting science. I hope others are encouraged to seek it out.

Heather

Nik - I must give you a huge thank you for posting this. Yesterday I met with a 2e specialist and she said neurofeedback would make a world of difference for our DS.

Yesterday Dr. Lovecky confirmed that my eg/pg DS6 has ADHD; signs of PDD; CAPD; some visual processing issues still despite 2.5 yrs of vt; sensory processing deficits - despite 5 yrs of ot (can you say Oh Vey!). She asked me if I had considered medication. I then briefly asked about neurofeedback based on this discussion here. Well, any talk of medication was dropped like a hot potato and she only concentrated on the neurofeedback and what a difference it would make.

Today I picked up the book, Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults, again as well as the Healing Young Brains book. What struck me is that the Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis book doesn't mention neurofeedback yet it's published in 2005 and Dr. Lovecky recommended it to us.

Now Dr. Lovecky is an expert on 2e kids - wrote the book Different Minds. I don't have the book in front of me, but I don't think she would recommend neurofeedback to us and not medication unless she was fairly certain of the outcome and results.