Neurotherapy Summer
Summer break is the perfect time to enhance your child or adolescent's brain, as well as your own. With neurotherapy, they can do that by watching their favorite movies, playing computer games, or listening to their favorite CDs! Most kids would prefer that to studying or reading long and boring books over the summer, and it can be just as beneficial or more so for their cognitive functioning.
Neurotherapy, also called neurofeedback, is a way to train brainwaves for optimal performance through non-invasive and non-medication measures. Abnormal patterns of cortical activity are recorded through a quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) and then are modified through neurotherapy by normalizing or optimizing the activity of the brain. In other words, individuals are able to see their brainwave patterns on the computer and learn to gain control over them and change them by getting feedback through auditory and visual formats. This feedback can now be given to them through movies, compact discs (CDs)/music, and computer games. For children, this media feedback is so important because it keeps their attention and interest while working on training brainwaves simultaneously. Neurotherapy may be a very effective tool for individuals between the ages of five and seventyfive, and can be a great alternative or addition to medication for self-management.
Neurotherapy is used to help treat many different problems and diagnoses, but it is most often applied to symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Anxiety Disorders, Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) such as Asperger's Disorder, Learning Disabilities (LD) such as Dyslexia, Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI), and Depression. Other areas it has been shown to be effective at treating include migraines/headaches, substance abuse, seizure disorders, sleep disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and stroke.
The qEEG is used as a baseline to identify problem areas in the brain to be worked on during neurotherapy. Every brain is different and responds differently to the neurotherapy; however, most people do two sessions per week (45-50 minutes per session) for three to six months. The summer usually lends itself to more free time with no school and it is a great time to take advantage of doing the neurotherapy more intensively, with up to five days per week. This will likely advance the results quicker and in a shorter amount of time.