Many par­ents, health care pro­fes­sion­als, and edu­ca­tors agree that there is a press­ing need to develop effec­tive treat­ments for ADHD to com­ple­ment or sub­sti­tute for tra­di­tional med­ica­tion and behav­ior ther­apy approaches. This is because such treat­ments do not work for every­one, impor­tant dif­fi­cul­ties often remain even when these treat­ments are effec­tive, and evi­dence for the long-term ben­e­fits of these treat­ments remains less com­pelling than one would like. In addi­tion, in the case of med­ica­tion treat­ment, some indi­vid­u­als expe­ri­ence intol­er­a­ble side effects and many have con­cerns about tak­ing ADHD med­ica­tion for an extended period.

One alter­na­tive approach to treat­ing ADHD has relied on the use of Com­pound Herbal Prepa­ra­tions (CHP) derived from tra­di­tional Chi­nese med­i­cine. Prac­ti­tion­ers of this approach believe that such prepa­ra­tions have impor­tant cog­ni­tive enhanc­ing prop­er­ties because they sup­ply essen­tial nutri­ents, fatty acids, phos­pho­lipids, amino acids, B vit­a­mins, min­er­als, and other micronu­tri­ents that are impor­tant for opti­mal brain growth and devel­op­ment. As a treat­ment for ADHD, the idea is that many indi­vid­u­als with ADHD have defi­cien­cies in essen­tial nutri­ents that com­pro­mise healthy brain devel­op­ment and result in ADHD symp­toms. Pro­vid­ing these nutri­ents via an appro­pri­ately pre­pared herbal com­pound thus has the poten­tial to be ther­a­peu­tic and reduce these symptoms.

This idea was tested recently in a randomized-controlled trial of a spe­cific CHP for chil­dren with ADHD [Katz, Kol-Degani, & Kav-Venaki (2010). A com­pound herbal prepa­ra­tion (CHP) in the treat­ment of ADHD: A ran­dom­ized con­trolled trial. Jour­nal of Atten­tion Dis­or­ders. Pub­lished online on March 12, 2010.] Par­tic­i­pants were 120 6–12 year-old chil­dren newly diag­nosed with ADHD based on a com­pre­hen­sive diag­nos­tic eval­u­a­tion. These chil­dren were all eval­u­ated at the Sheba Med­ical Cen­ter, one of the largest university-affiliated ter­tiary care cen­ters in Israel.

(Editor´s note: Dr. David Rabiner, author of this arti­cle, pre­vi­ously reviewed a 2005 meta-analysis whose find­ings need to be kept in mind to con­tex­tu­al­ize this new study. In the arti­cle Dietary Inter­ven­tion for ADHD: A Meta-Analysis, Dr. Rabiner con­cluded that “Results from this meta-analysis pro­vide strong evi­dence that the behav­ior of chil­dren with ADHD can be made worse by dietary fac­tors, and that elim­i­nat­ing AFCs from their diets will, on aver­age, result in behav­ioral improve­ments. This result is con­sis­tent with with accu­mu­lat­ing evi­dence that neu­robe­hav­ioral tox­i­c­ity may result from a wide vari­ety of dis­trib­uted chemicals.”)

Chil­dren were ran­domly assigned to receive either the CHP (n=80) or a placebo (n=40) that was spe­cially pre­pared to Read the rest of this entry »

As noted in our Mar­ket Report, we expect the field of cog­ni­tive train­ing (or “brain fit­ness”) soft­ware to grow in a vari­ety of edu­ca­tion and health-related areas over the next years. One of the most promis­ing areas in our view: help­ing chil­dren and adults with atten­tion deficits improve brain func­tion to reduce ADHD symptoms.

I am glad to present this in-depth dis­cus­sion on the results of two recent high-quality sci­en­tific stud­ies. Let me start with Dr. Rabiner’s conclusion:

“Results from these two cog­ni­tive train­ing stud­ies high­light that cog­ni­tive train­ing inter­ven­tions may pro­vide an impor­tant com­ple­ment to tra­di­tional med­ica­tion treat­ment and behav­ior ther­apy. Both stud­ies included appro­pri­ate con­trol groups, employed ran­dom assign­ment, and had out­come mea­sures pro­vided by indi­vid­u­als who were “blind” to which con­di­tion chil­dren were assigned to. They are thus well-designed stud­ies from which sci­en­tif­i­cally sound con­clu­sions can be drawn. They add to the grow­ing research base that inten­sive prac­tice and train­ing focused of key cog­ni­tive skills can have pos­i­tive effects that extend beyond the train­ing sit­u­a­tion itself.”

With­out futher ado…enjoy the article!

- Alvaro

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Two New Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Stud­ies for ADHD Yield Promis­ing Findings

– By Dr. David Rabiner

Although med­ica­tion treat­ment is effec­tive for many chil­dren with ADHD, there remains an impor­tant need to explore and develop inter­ven­tions that can com­ple­ment or even sub­sti­tute for med­ica­tion. This is true for a vari­ety of rea­sons including:

Read the rest of this entry »

A CDC report esti­mated that, in 2003, 4.4 mil­lion youth ages 4–17 lived with diag­nosed ADHD, and 2.5 mil­lion of them were receiv­ing med­ica­tion treat­ment. Now, which is the core deficit under­ly­ing ADHD-so that treat­ments really address it? and how are ADHD and brain devel­op­ment related? Keep reading…

ADHD & the Nature of Self-Control — Revis­it­ing Barkley’s The­ory of ADHD

— By David Rabiner, Ph.D

As implied in the title of his book, ADHD and the Nature of Self-Control, Dr. Barkley argues that the fun­da­men­tal deficit in indi­vid­u­als with ADHD is one of self-control, and that prob­lems with atten­tion are a sec­ondary char­ac­ter­is­tic of the disorder.

Dr. Barkley empha­sizes that dur­ing the course of devel­op­ment, con­trol over a child’s behav­ior grad­u­ally shifts from exter­nal sources to being increas­ingly gov­erned by inter­nal rules and stan­dards. Con­trol­ling one’s behav­ior by inter­nal rules and stan­dards is what is meant by the term “self-control”.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Editor’s Note: Neu­ro­feed­back is one of the tech­nolo­gies that peo­ple often ask us about.  It is a promis­ing inter­ven­tion in a vari­ety of areas, and has got sig­nif­i­cant trac­tion in help­ing kids with ADD/ ADHD. Now, given the sig­nif­i­cant cost it poses for par­ents, we need to ask the ques­tion: “How Strong is the Research Sup­port for Neu­ro­feed­back Treat­ment of Chil­dren with ADHD”? We are hon­ored to present the thoughts of Duke University’s Dr. David Rabiner, a lead­ing author­ity on the field, on that impor­tant issue. As a bonus, you will enjoy his detailed descrip­tion and sug­ges­tions of how to design a high-quality sci­en­tific study.)

(Update as of March 2009: Dr. David Rabiner has writ­ten an update to the arti­cle below based on a newer study. You can read it click­ing on link: New Study Sup­ports Neu­ro­feed­back Treat­ment for ADHD)
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How Strong is the Research Sup­port for Neu­ro­feed­back Treat­ment of Chil­dren with ADHD?

Nei­ther of the two promi­nent approaches to treat­ing ADHD — med­ica­tion treat­ment and behav­ior ther­apy — are expected to effect long term changes in the child. Med­ica­tion treat­ment induces short-term changes in brain activ­ity that is asso­ci­ated with a reduc­tion in symp­toms for many indi­vid­u­als. Behav­ior ther­apy attempts to cre­ate a set of envi­ron­men­tal con­tin­gen­cies that pro­mote desired behav­ior in the child, but which is unlikely to endure when those con­tin­gen­cies are removed.

In recent years, researchers have begun devot­ing greater atten­tion to the pos­si­bil­ity that chil­dren — and adults — may be pro­vided with par­tic­u­lar kinds of expe­ri­ences that may induce alter­ations in brain func­tion­ing that are asso­ci­ated with more endur­ing changes, i.e., they do not dis­si­pate as soon as treat­ment ends.

Neu­ro­feed­back — also known as EEG Biofeed­back — is reflec­tive of this approach and has a his­tory that goes back Read the rest of this entry »

A blog car­ni­val is a col­lec­tion of good blog posts around a spe­cific topic, pub­lished usu­ally every 2 or 4 weeks. This time many car­ni­vals included some of our arti­cles, so we have a longer than usual list. Take a look at the top­ics you may be inter­ested in.

The first 5 car­ni­vals did the most cre­ative work, in our view, to dis­play all the con­tent: Read the rest of this entry »