By: Elizabeth Ludrick Date Posted: 7/30/2009 Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend

If you think altering brain waves is the sole domain of neurologists and the occasional mad scientist, think again. Neurofeedback is a treatment that does just this and it’s gaining popularity, especially as an option for children who have been diagnosed with ADD, ADHD and anxiety, among other disorders.

Neurofeedback is, essentially, a method for retraining the brain to achieve a desired result (and improve function). And, as intense as it sounds, it’s really no more complicated than that.

So how does it work? Neurofeedback is little more than a video game, at least as far as your child is concerned. During a session, both patient and therapist sit in front of computer monitors with electrodes placed in various positions on the patient’s scalp.

Then the games begin.

Your child controls the action using not a joystick or a Wii, but the brain. Only the brain.

For instance, one program features a rocket ship that the child must learn to maneuver with his mind. Sounds like fun, but Dr. Jonathan Walker, a neurologist with the Neurotherapy Center of Dallas, says what the child is really doing is normalizing the way the brain functions. “[Children] learn to make fast activity in the front of the brain whenever they need it [to pay attention],” he explains.

In the case of ADD, for example, science tells us the front part of the brain is functioning more slowly than it should. With the electrodes and the brain’s concentration on achieving results in the game, the frontal lobe’s activity speeds up to a normal range, improving overall function (the same goal as medication).

“It fixes the problem,” says Walker. As the brain learns to correct itself over a series of sessions, the medications are no longer necessary. “The efficacy [of neurofeedback] has been compared with drugs,” he says, but unlike a drug, it doesn’t have the negative side effects.

But it’s not only ADD that neurofeedback can help; it can also be successful in treating children for depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and even bed-wetting.

Experts like Walker agree it can take as many as 20 sessions to achieve results, but once the neuropathways are built, they are permanent. And, as for cost, the sessions are often comparable to a regular therapy visit, but insurance companies vary on their coverage of this treatment.

A major reason this approach is so successful with kids is likely due to the fact that they’re just playing a game. But the real medical success, according to Walker, is the ability to make the brain do on its own what medication does. “Children are less skeptical,” he says, adding. “It’s a permanent fix.”

For additional information or to find a neurologist who utilizes this therapy, visit EEG Spectrum International, Inc., a world-renowned organization that specializes in neurofeedback, at www.eegspectrum.com.