Category — Adult ADHD

Researchers, Dr. Zylowska, et al from the University of California-Los Angeles conducted a feasibility study of an 8-week mindfulness training program for adults and adolescents with ADHD. Their report was published in The Journal of Attention Disorders (2008 May;11(6):737-46. Epub 2007 Nov 19).

The researchers sought to inquire whether mindfulness meditation could improve attention, reduce stress, and improve mood. The researchers recruited 34 adults and 8 adolescents. Study participants were given a weekly training session. They were also required to practice daily starting with 5 minutes of meditation per day and gradually increasing to 15 minutes per day.

The majority of participants (after dropouts) reported improvements in self-reported ADHD symptoms. Independent tests on tasks measuring attention and cognitive inhibition also indicated improved symptom outcomes. Improvements in anxiety and depressive symptoms were also observed.

In yet another pilot study conducted by Sarina J. Grosswald, Ed.D., a George Washington University-trained cognitive learning specialist, a group of middle school students with ADHD were required to meditate twice a day in school. After three months, researchers found over 50 percent reduction in stress and anxiety and improvements in ADHD symptoms.

"The effect was much greater than we expected," said Sarina J. Grosswald, Ed.D., a George Washington University-trained cognitive learning specialist and lead researcher on the study. "The children also showed improvements in attention, working memory, organization, and behavior regulation."

Due to the neuroplasticity of the brain, better attention can be attained through meditation. Buddhist monks have been doing it for centuries. This seems to be true of ADHD persons as well. However, it is quite apparent that attention difficulties are just the tip of the ADHD iceberg. Other skills including organization, filtering out distractions, memory, time on-task, motor skills, visual tracking, etc, are typically diminished in ADHD persons. A complete program like Play Attention is required to teach these skills.

As for meditation, it is likely a good supplement to training in the aforementioned skill areas, but given the nature of the cited studies, a controlled clinical study is warranted.

The worldwide adult ADHD market holds a potential for billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical industry. In a brilliant marketing effort guised as a benevolent informational/screening initiative, Shire pharmaceuticals, the makers of Adderall for ADHD, launched a “screening initiative” in Atlanta. Shire’s press release states that they “…expect up to 20,000 adults to self-screen for ADHD in 13 cities” over 90 days.

Shire’s press release further states that:

The screening initiative, launched in Atlanta, GA, is designed to help raise awareness that ADHD is not just a childhood disorder. Research shows it is estimated that up to 65 percent of children with ADHD will continue to exhibit symptoms into adulthood. Adults who think they may have ADHD can take the first step toward recognizing the symptoms of the disorder by answering the 6-question World Health Organization (W.H.O.) adult ADHD screener. The screening initiative, known as the "RoADHD Trip," is housed, transported and anchored by the RoADHD Trip Tractor Trailer which expands into a tented area housing eight self-screening stations.

“Shire developed this mobile screening initiative as a forum to educate the public about ADHD in adults and provide information and resources to individuals about this disorder," said Gerardo Torres, M.D., Vice President and Scientific Lead, of Shire’s ADHD Business Unit. "This program demonstrates Shire’s on-going commitment to providing information for those who may be struggling with the symptoms of ADHD."

In each of the 13 cities, Shire is partnering with the Attention Deficit Disorder Association (ADDA), a leading adult ADHD patient advocacy organization, in an effort to assist up to 20,000 adults to self-screen for this disorder. Volunteers from ADDA will also be on-site to answer questions about ADHD in adults and to provide information about their organization. The W.H.O. adult ADHD screener, a questionnaire that is used to help recognize the symptoms of ADHD, will be available via on-site computers to help facilitate self evaluations. The W.H.O. screener is not designed to provide a diagnosis of ADHD but may provide information to participants regarding the symptoms of ADHD. Participants should discuss any questions they have regarding the W.H.O. screener results and other concerns about ADHD with their physician.

"Seeking information and speaking to qualified health care professionals are critical steps to diagnosis and management of ADHD," further explained Dr. Torres. "This initiative is an important first step to encourage that dialogue between patients and their physicians."

This should leave Shire’s competitors slapping their foreheads saying, “Why didn’t I think of this!”

Do ADHD Adults Really Lose 3 Weeks of Work Each Year?

A new study claims they do.

It’s estimated that approximately 70% to 80% of all children will carry their attention problems into adulthood. According to the new study, this could present problems for their employers. The study, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, found that ADHD adults worked 22.1 days less than other workers each year. Furthermore, the study found that they were unable to carry out normal work activities an average of 8.4 days per year, 21.7 days of reduced work quantity and 13.6 days of reduced work quality.

The study of 7,075 workers in ten countries was performed by the World Health Organization (“WHO”) research consortium at Harvard Medical School in Boston Medicine and partially subsidized by pharmaceutical giant, Eli Lilly. The WHO claims that an average of 3.5 per cent had ADHD.

Strangely enough, adult ADHD workers in the Netherlands actually showed improved job performance – exactly contradictory to all other trends in the study. The researchers explained this as an aberration. Historically, the Netherlands medicates persons for ADHD far less than other countries and has a particularly different perspective on attention problems.

This study tends to corroborate Dr. Joseph Biederman’s work (oddly enough, he’s with Harvard University too) that indicates ADHD adults collectively lose $77 billion each year due to workplace failure.

As I reported earlier (Do ADHD Adults Really Lose 3 Weeks of Work Each Year?), a study published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, found that ADHD adults worked 22.1 days less than other workers each year. Furthermore, the study found that they were unable to carry out normal work activities an average of 8.4 days per year, 21.7 days of reduced work quantity and 13.6 days of reduced work quality.

However the study actually begs the question of what is adult ADHD. If you’ve found that it’s difficult to concentrate because you may be hyperactive, have trouble remembering appointments or finishing a project once the challenge is gone, are easily distracted, or avoid tasks that require concentration the World Health Organization (“WHO”) says that you may have adult ADHD! The WHO also thinks that many adults do not know they have the condition.

Who (no pun) hasn’t felt easily distracted or avoids boring tasks? I wonder if the shaky diagnosis of adult ADHD – which by the way, is totally subjective – is being exaggerated so that more people can be ‘treated’ i.e. prescribed medication.

The researchers (World Health Organization (“WHO”) research consortium at Harvard Medical School in Boston Medicine) formed their conclusions by evaluating data from 7,075 adult workers in several countries. The workers ranged in ages from 18 to 44 and were screened for ADHD as part of the World Health Organization World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The researchers surveyed the workers about their performance at work in the last month.

Both the media and the pharmaceutical industries have helped spur the diagnosis of ADHD by clinicians. However it will remain a controversial diagnosis shrouded by concerns about context; we are now required to sit and perform focused and organizational tasks more now than ever before in history. This has changed greatly from work at standard manual labor and assembly lines of the past. Is it natural for us to become distracted at tedious or boring jobs? Do we need medication to improve our work? For whose benefit? Furthermore, an ADHD diagnosis can be symptomatic of personal learning problems or family dysfunction among many other scenarios that comprise the human situation.

Adult ADHD is caught in the midst of a tug-of-war between pharmaceutical marketing, changes in the workplace, and a very loose, subjective diagnosis. Buyer beware.

I sat down with veteran actor, Max Gail a short time ago to discuss Max’s attention problems and how they relate to his family and acting career.

Q: Do people still recognize you from Barney Miller?

A: Probably most people would connect me up as an actor or I get recognized for the work I’ve done as an actor because it’s a real visible kind of work. People say where do I know you from, which I hear a lot, or gee you look familiar to me or something or haven’t I seen you in the movies or something. I start with Barney Miller because it’s a TV show that was on for, we shot for seven and a half seasons and then went immediately into reruns and were on twice a night for another 8 years in most cities and it’s still playing some places.

We had critical success and we had a lot of fun doing it. I did a show, and we did half a season, and they showed it on ABC called Sons and Daughters.

Q: You told me that your son, Max, Jr. has attention problems. How have the two of you coped with them?

A: My son Max, really really bright kid was having some difficulties with certain aspects of school and I saw that they were the same difficulties I had although when I was in school it was easier to slide around those things and most of the solution that were being offered had to do with drugs and I had some intuitive issues with that. At a different time if they would have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD or maybe Asperger’s [syndrome] or any of these things, you know, I could have made the cut. I have to say [I’m] a person who resonates with this, personally, both in what my life has been, where my strengths and weaknesses have been, in everything I’ve tried to do.

Q: Is that what spurred your interest in finding a solution?

A: I met you, Peter, at the disabilities conference in Los Angeles. I’m concerned about helping my son and spreading what I find into the community at large. Watching my son in particular but really all my kids in some ways struggle with these things and then to see that there really is a way to use some technology and some understandings and some relationships to deal with those issues in a way to create a since of having some kind of powerless confused sort of feeling that makes you want to deny it or run away from it or get angry about it or blame somebody. It’s just a really wonderful thing

Q. What do you think about Play Attention?

A: I love the name Play Attention. I love that there’s something behind it very meaningful that comes from people who have worked with kids and care about kids and care about these kinds of problems and identifying that there are solutions.

Play Attention with the technology and the coaching components of it really creates a way that there can be that guide in a practice of working to develop those kinds of skills and strengths that are missing. Play Attention puts that focus on play state which is really how we learn. Play Attention provides a practice that’s meaningful and can be fun to do and this is kind of special technology even though it’s made up of stuff that’s around.

It’s kind of new to get it out to people. It’s new for people to hear about it so that process is mostly families or people that are at their wits end that finally find out about Play Attention and they call and get connected and try it and it works and then they’re really thankful. They’re having a lot of recurring pain and lack of success or confusion or just problems in their lives that can really be helped or something that can be done about it.

As I’ve discussed in previous blogs, ADHD children and adults have difficulty recognizing social cues or regulating impulse control and therefore frequently cannot maintain friendships or adapt well socially.

A recent study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, (48, 50-67) examines the other side of this issue; it examines the attitudes of adults toward persons with depression or AD/HD. The study indicates that many adults would personally prefer not to interact or have their child not interact (social distancing) with an AD/HD child. The study also reveals factors that contribute to the desire for social distancing. Participants in the study consisted of 1393 adults from across the US.

Participants were read a randomly selected vignette that provided a brief behavioral description of 1 of 4 different children. While no diagnoses were provided, the vignettes depicted behaviors characteristic of a child with a medical condition (asthma), a child with depression, a child with ADHD, and a child that presented what the authors described as “normal troubles.”

After listening to the vignette, researchers asked a series of questions to learn about the participants’ thoughts and emotions regarding the child depicted in the vignette. To more deeply delve into the reasoning behind social distancing, the researchers also examined participants’ beliefs about the suspected causes of behavior displayed by the child in the vignette. These included whether the participants believed the child had a mental illness, “bad character”, or “chemical imbalance in the brain.” Participants were also queried whether they believed the child depicted was a danger to self or others.

CONCLUSIONS

Interestingly, percentages of adults who were more likely to not engage with a child or child’s family, if that family was described as having symptoms characteristic of AD/HD or depression, were 2-3 times higher than when a child with “normal troubles” or asthma was depicted.

Some clear trends were also established: male participants were more likely to desire distance than females and older children desired distancing more frequently than younger (8 yrs.) children.

Furthermore, preference for distance increased if participants believed that the depicted child’s problems were caused by poor parental discipline.

When participants believed the depicted child’s problems were caused naturally, e.g. from food allergies or “normal ups and downs” their preference for distance decreased.

Attributing the child’s problems to a mental illness increased the preference for distance. Related to this, believing that the child posed a danger to himself or to others increased the preference for distance.

SUMMARY

The researchers cite that “… a substantial minority of American adults are reluctant to interact, or to have their children interact, with children described in ways consistent with ADHD and depression. Specifically, about 1 in 5 adults was unwilling to have these children living next door, in his or her child’s class, or as his or her child’s friend.”

It is a myth that poor parenting causes AD/HD. However it is evident that social distancing is desired if parents deem the offending child’s behavior to be caused by poor parenting.

By middle school, I would suggest a majority of AD/HD children feel socially outcast. Social acceptance of AD/HD children by their peers may be influenced by the parental attitudes either explicitly conveyed or indirectly communicated. Regardless, it’s evident that despite continued public education, barriers toward social acceptance exist albeit on a minor scale as about 4 out of 5 adults did not report these biases.

I think the greatly varying attitudes toward AD/HD reflect a general confusion regarding the subject. It’s regarded a brain disorder, not as a learning disability which is where I would prefer to see it. The brain disorder lends a certain stigma to AD/HD which is unfortunate. If it were considered a simple lack of certain skills (which is what it actually is) then not only could it be better understood by the general populace, but it would force the medical community to broaden their utterly narrow perspective on treatment benefiting all concerned.

Kids with mental illness often rejected socially

March 19, 2007

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Research suggests that a “substantial minority” of American adults are reluctant to let their children interact with children who suffer from depression or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

About one out of five parents would not want these children as neighbors, in their child’s classroom, or as their child’s friend, report Jack K. Martin and colleagues from Indiana University in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Older children and boys with mental conditions are most likely to be rejected.

This troubling pattern, the investigators report, appears to result from perceptions that a mentally ill child may be “dangerous.”

“If, as it seems, the ‘mental illness’ of either children or adults signals danger to the public, this barrier must be addressed by future political, legal, and research agendas,” according to Martin and colleagues.

The research stems from interviews with more than 1,100 adults as part of the General Social Survey administered by the National Opinion Research Center. The interviewees were given descriptions of children of various ages with asthma, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression or “normal” ups and downs of childhood.

Levels of rejection for children with depression and ADHD were two to three times higher than those reported for children with asthma or “normal” childhood troubles.

The results showed that almost 30 percent of parents said they would not like their child to become friends with a child who was depressed and more than 18 percent wouldn’t want to live next door to a family with a depressed child.

Roughly 23 percent of parents said they preferred that their child not make friends with a child with behaviors consistent with ADHD and 22 percent wouldn’t want to live next door to a family with a child with ADHD.

“In line with the 1999 Surgeon General’s report on mental illness, our analyses point to continuing barriers to public acceptance,” note the report’s authors. “While not as significant an obstacle as the rejection of adults, social distance does reflect stigma surrounding children’s mental health problems.”

They hope a greater understanding of the roots of this stigma will lead to effective efforts to confront the persistent lack of social acceptance of the mentally ill.

SOURCE: Journal of Health and Social Behavior, March 2007.

From the Kansas City Star by DIANE STAFFORD:

ADHD SUFFERERS FIND THEIR NICHE: Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Do Well on Deadline and Love a Challenge?

Can you say clueless? Stafford interviews Dr. William Dodson, MD who spoke to about 50 Hallmark Cards employees. His recommendation? If you want an employee who performs best on deadline, hire someone who has trouble staying on task. Dodson apparently specializes in treating with AD/HD. He said that adults with the neuropsychiatric condition generally respond well to urgency and fast pace. This seems true, meeting deadlines? That’s one of the greatest problems for adult AD/HD people.

“Workers with ADD need to be challenged or feel competitive,’’ Dodson generalized. “They like the new, the novel, the fleeting. They need ADD-friendly jobs – not accounting.’’

Sure they do. They are great in marketing. But don’t rely on them to get a job done on time. I’ve worked with many AD/HD adults. They’ll accept 20 jobs and finish none of them. Dodson truly seems clueless here.

Stafford also cites Blythe Gross, who has a doctoral degree in organizational psychology, also specializes in ADD treatment. After working with or interviewing hundreds of adult ADD patients, Gross wrote Making ADD Work: On-the-Job Strategies for Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder. Gross has been in the trenches with hundreds of AD/HD adults. She’s much more realistic in her perspective. She indicates that adult AD/HD “symptoms can range from an inability to get started on a task, to an inability to follow through on a task, to perfectionism that makes a project drag on forever because it’s never good enough.” This statement is the antithesis of Dodson’s.

I’d go with Gross and recommend her book, Making ADD Work: On-the-Job Strategies for Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder. With so many ‘experts’ on this subject, someone has to cry ‘baloney’ when nonsense like Dodson’s is put to press.

I recently debated multitasking to task switching. Multitasking denotes attention to a variety of extraneous and internal stimuli. All research that I can find concludes that the human mind performs much less efficiently under multitasking environments–this includes the following article from Johns Hopkins University and published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Task switching denotes shifting full attention from one activity to the next. It seems to parallel our current understanding of brain function in a high stimuli environment.

Multitasking: You can’t pay full attention to both sights and sounds Lab findings suggest reason cell phones and driving don’t mix The reason talking on a cell phone makes drivers less safe may be that the brain can’t simultaneously give full attention to both the visual task of driving and the auditory task of listening, a study by a Johns Hopkins University psychologist suggests. The study, published in a recent issue of “The Journal of Neuroscience,” reinforces earlier behavioral research on the danger of mixing mobile phones and motoring.

“Our research helps explain why talking on a cell phone can impair driving performance, even when the driver is using a hands-free device,” said Steven Yantis, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the university’s Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

“The reason?” he said. “Directing attention to listening effectively ‘turns down the volume’ on input to the visual parts of the brain. The evidence we have right now strongly suggests that attention is strictly limited – a zero-sum game. When attention is deployed to one modality – say, in this case, talking on a cell phone – it necessarily extracts a cost on another modality – in this case, the visual task of driving.”

Yantis’s chief collaborator on this research project was Sarah Shomstein, who was a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins. Shomstein is now a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Though the results of Yantis’ research can be applied to the real world problem of drivers and their cell phones, that was not directly what the professor and his team studied. Instead, healthy young adults ages 19 to 35 were brought into a neuroimaging lab and asked to view a computer display while listening to voices over headphones. They watched a rapidly changing display of multiple letters and digits, while listening to three voices speaking letters and digits at the same time. The purpose was to simulate the cluttered visual and auditory input people deal with every day.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Yantis and his team recorded brain activity during each of these tasks. They found that when the subjects directed their attention to visual tasks, the auditory parts of their brain recorded decreased activity, and vice versa.

Yantis’ team also examined the parts of the brain that control shifts of attention. They discovered that when a person was instructed to move his attention from vision to hearing, for instance, the brain’s parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex produced a burst of activity that the researchers interpreted as a signal to initiate the shift of attention. This surprised them, because it has previously been thought that those parts of the brain were involved only in visual functions.

“Ultimately, we want to understand the connection between voluntary acts of the will (for instance, a choice to shift attention from vision to hearing), changes in brain activity (reflecting both the initiation of cognitive control and the effects of that control), and resultant changes in the performance of a task, such as driving,” Yantis said. “By advancing our understanding of the connection between mind, brain and behavior, this research may help in the design of complex devices – such as airliner cockpits – and may help in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders such as ADHD or schizophrenia.”

ABC News online probes the work of Robert Jergen, and ADHD adult who carefully manages and optimizes his attention difficulties.

What is important to realize in reading this report is that he is a minority; he is one of the very few ADHD adults who successfully manage their attention difficulties. Although his success story is quite moving, it is not the norm as Dr. Joseph Biederman found in his recent study that indicated ADHD adults lose $77 billion yearly to ADHD related job issues.

Also, note the fact that Jergen almost committed suicide because of ADHD. Obviously, what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. However, one must wonder how many adults haven’t adapted and successfully put an end to their ADHD troubles by suicide.

What can be gleaned readily from Jergen is that ADHD is manageable using a variety of tools. The true question may be what enabled him to succeed where others fail?

ABC’s story:

Robert Jergen writes two books a year, works on several research projects simultaneously and, after finishing a PhD in half the normal time, began a successful teaching career. It takes a special person with special skills to complete such a heavy load, but one would never guess the secret to Jergen’s success.

“I have ADHD,” says Jergen.

ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is often considered a childhood disorder. Yet an estimated four percent of adults may also suffer from the hyperactivity, inattentiveness and impulsivity that ADHD causes.

With information about this disorder spreading quickly, many adults are suddenly realizing that their previously unexplainable childhood and adult problems may have stemmed from ADHD. Jergen, now in his late 30s, didn’t have a name for his problems until he was 22, and ironically, taking a class on special education.

But, as Jergen explains in his book, The Little Monster, the signs started much earlier.

“As soon as my eyes would pop open after a nap, the crib would start to tremble and [my mother] would always know when the little monster was awake,” says Jergen.

Growing Up Different

The nickname “little monster” was bestowed upon Robert as he destroyed everything in his path; his parents just didn’t understand that he couldn’t control his actions. Jergen describes numerous situations where he would impulsively throw a knife, dismantle a lamp or toss lit matches at a model ship, each time thinking a moment too late, “Now that wasn’t such a good idea.”

It’s not that Jergen didn’t know right from wrong; he just acted without realizing. And being hypersensitive, like many other ADHD children, Jergen’s head is still filled with his mother saying over and over, “Jesus Christ, give me strength! You are such a rotten kid!” even though he is not entirely sure if she ever said it more than once.

It was the constant disappointment and scolding, both at school and at home, and constant comparisons to his athletic, intelligent, sweet brothers that caused a slow slide into depression.

“I always heard, ‘Rob, I love you, but you don’t do what you’re told, you don’t finish what you start, you do things without thinking,’” he says. “And what I grew up hearing was, ‘I really don’t love you, but I would, if you would stop doing this.’”

By eighth grade, Jergen had twice attempted suicide.

The Lowest Point

Jergen’s outlook improved after meeting an accepting group of friends in high school, but the hopelessness returned in college when he fell in with a group who called themselves the “All-American Drinking Team.”

Jergen, typical of those with ADHD, found alcohol to be the one tool that could be used to quiet his head, which helped him concentrate in class, improve his grades and calm his constant anxiety over how he appeared to others. But alcohol also brought out years worth of pent-up rage. So, after an ugly night at a bar, Jergen realized he had to stop drinking.

With the drinking stopped, Jergen’s head became noisy again. And while he loved his job teaching adolescents with special needs, it was the quiet paperwork, long meetings and coworkers angry with his antics that made work miserable. The stress was quickly driving Jergen back to alcohol and depression.

To try to stem the tide, Jergen returned to school, where he last felt most comfortable. It would be here that he would receive an answer to all of his problems.

A Wall of TVs

At the beginning of a master’s program, Jergen’s condition became steadily worse. Rude comments would just pop out of his mouth without him even realizing. He once poked his boss in a thin patch of hair and proclaimed “bald spot!” Unable to concentrate on any of his reading assignments, unable to control his actions or even his mind, Jergen was again considering suicide.

Oddly enough, Jergen would find help in a student, Troy, who had schizophrenia. Jergen was furious one day when he found out that Troy was not taking his medication and lectured him about how smart and successful he could be if only took a little pill every day.

A bell went off in Jergen’s head.

“I thought, ‘you are such a hypocrite. You are just sitting there waiting for death or a white padded room. Maybe there is some drug that you could take to make you normal.’”

This was the beginning of Jergen’s turnaround. After countless therapy sessions, incorrect diagnoses of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, an abnormal MRI and EEG (two tests that are commonly used to diagnose ADHD), Jergen happened to attend a support group meeting of ADHD adults for a special education class, when someone said:

“My mind is like a wall of television sets, each on a different channel and I don’t have the remote.”

For the first time, Jergen found a way to describe what was going on in his head. “One second I thought that I was a loser. A freak,” he says. “The next moment I knew that I had ADHD. I wasn’t alone.”

Turning ADHD Around

Most patients with ADHD go through years of trying different types and doses of medications before a successful combination is achieved. For Jergen, after two years of trying various medications with no success, or unbearable side effects, he became resolved to make ADHD work for him, instead of relying on medications to control it.

Jergen is not against medication, and he openly agrees that it can help one focus. “But medications do not teach people to learn, do math or act appropriately,” he says. So, he reminds parents and teachers that one will not just “get better” with medication and advocates behavior therapy to help a person with ADHD learn the organizational and social skills they may not have learned as a child.

For Jergen, however, the goal became to use the hyperactivity of ADHD instead of masking it. “All my problems were when I was trying to slow down, when I was trying to go at everybody else’s pace,” he says.

He became hyper-productive. Jergen kept a log outlining when and where he got the most work done. Then, he designed a work environment that would push out distractions and allow him to remain focused.

For example, Jergen’s office is dimly lit with one bright light shining on his computer, constantly reminding him where his attention should be. Soft music playing in the background blocks any outside noise. A computer game runs on a nearby laptop to give him something to do for a few seconds when his mind begins to wander. If the heavy clouds of ADHD begin to roll into his head anyway, Jergen hops on his treadmill. He has found that a short burst of exercise clears his head and allows his focus to return.

Most importantly, Jergen understands the importance of a strong support system. An honest, encouraging mentor got him through his PhD program and, now, his wife helps to keep him on track, reminding him to take a walk when he seems most on-edge. It is this support system that has helped Jergen build his self esteem after so many years of failures.

There are still problems. Jergen has a hard time staying quiet when his students are taking a test, and not everyone at work is so understanding of his disorder. Even his parents still doubt that he has ADHD, saying instead that he just needs to try harder. Nevertheless, Jergen is currently testing some of his techniques to see if they will help others with ADHD turn their greatest challenge into their greatest advantage.

“Don’t repress ADHD, utilize it,” says Jergen. “ADHD is A-OK.”

What are Biofeedback and Neurofeedback?

Feedback is an process which reflexively changes itself using its own forceful flow. The classic feedback device is the steam valve. As the steam causes a rotor to turn the centrifugal force of the rotation causes levers to rise, or strings to fly out, in the same way that if you rapidly turn yourself, your arms fly outward.

The levers on a steam device control the flow of steam, the faster the rotation the smaller the steam vent, the smaller the vent the slower the rotation. The size of the vent, the speed of rotation and the force of the arms closing the valve can all be adjusted so that the rotating axle maintains a consistent speed, so long as the supply of steam is constant.

Over one hundred years ago, French physiologist, Claude Bernard, who was characterized by Louis Pasteur “Physiology Itself” noted that most all of the human body’s systems are feedback regulated. In fact, they remain quite constant regardless of changes in the external environment. In 1932, Walter Cannon coined the term homeostasis to describe internal dynamic constancy.

A man eats food, his mouth fills, juices flow, his stomach fills, and his sensors send a signal, “satisfied.” He stops eating. A woman trots upstairs a bit too fast, her oxygen sensors are starved, and she starts breathing more deeply and quickly.

I glance out the window, the sun has moved to bounce off the white wall of the bank next door, my pupils contract, and I turn back toward the darkest wall of the room, or dash into my dark room. My pupils dilate.

Generally, body systems regulate through positive and negative feedback loops. The body has sensors that detect deviation from its normal internal range. This deviation activates effectors that essentially reverse the condition.

Such ordinary biological feedback of daily living can be enhanced by using mechanical transducers (devices which measure energies). I can press a piece of plastic against my palm which turns color depending on my temperature. Quickly I learn to make the color redder and redder (the color is arbitrary, it could be bluer and bluer). If I am prone to headaches I can prevent, inhibit, or relieve a headache by warming my hand. I may measure the way my skin conducts electricity and can learn to make my own skin less conductive which tends to relax me. The plastic has fed the information back to my conscious mind and my brain has learned consciously to warm my hand. My body is responding to a feedback loop. According to Merriam Webster, biofeedback is: “the technique of making unconscious or involuntary bodily processes (as heartbeats or brain waves) perceptible to the senses (as by the use of an oscilloscope) in order to manipulate them by conscious mental control.”

Early in the development of biofeedback attention was first focused on temperature (TEMP) change. Temperature is easily and cheaply monitored and learned change is markedly reliable. Muscle tension (EMG) soon came along. The techniques of measuring muscle tension are perhaps as easily done as temperature measurement; but the equipment is more costly. TEMP and EMG are the most widely practiced forms of biofeedback.

In 1970 Barry Sterman noted that he could readily train cats to strengthen the amplitude of signals at 13 pulses per second generated in the brain’s Fissure of Roland. Later he observed that cats trained to make stronger 13-14 Hz signals resisted epileptogenic drugs (specifically, injected hydrazine). D.A.Quirk, a Canadian penologist, and G.von Hilsheimer, a Florida neurofeedback specialist, applied Sterman’s 1970 method to 2776 felons imprisoned in the Ontario Correctional Institute near Toronto and to about 10,000 clients seen in hospital and in outpatient care. The recidivism in these prisoners (15% in 3 years after discharge, compared to 40 – 100% in typical prisons) reduced significantly.

Subsequently a professional movement has been created using EEG biofeedback in the treatment of ADHD (pioneered by Professor Lubar at the University of Tennessee). In Europe a significant network of practitioners has been organized by Prof. Dr. Jiri Tyl of Prague who has significantly contributed to the proof of the efficacy of EEG biofeedback (see EEG Biofeedback FAQ)

Neurofeedback is a specific type of biofeedback that makes brainwaves perceptible through the use of sensors attached to the head. The brain operates by sending minute electrical impulses to the many cells that comprise it. When the brain is excited it emits a specific frequency range of waves. The same is true if it is tired or focused. This process is similar to a radio tower that gives off radio waves. Brainwave sensors called electrodes monitor brainwaves emanating from the brain much the same way a radio receiver monitors different radio frequencies – if I change my car radio from 101.5 FM to 107 FM, I get to listen to a different station. So, the sensors pick up these signals like little radio antennae. A receiver, like a radio receiver, amplifies them and sends them to a computer where they are changed to sound and/or pictures on the computer monitor. The pictures and sounds make the current state of the brain perceptible because that information is displayed via sound and pictures on the computer screen. So, if a person is overly excited, she can see this on the screen in a graph or perhaps a screen character rapidly buzzing around. If she wishes to calm herself, she learns to slow the computer character which is reflecting the necessary relaxing brainwave pattern. By repeating this process many times, she can eventually learn to place her brain and body in a calm state without the neurofeedback equipment. This learning achieved by biofeedback is robust, stable, reliable, and readily acquired.

There is significant evidence that hyperactive boys tend to make high amplitude slow brain waves which are associated with inefficient faster brain waves. The child can be taught to reduce the amplitude of signals slower than 7 pulses per second (<7 Hz for Hertz) and to increase the strength of the signals running 13-14 Hertz. Such children tend to become more social, more effective at school work, and they perform more adroitly on IQ and other tests. One can think of this process as switching radio stations at will. Neurofeedback students learn to switch from inattentive (daydreaming) states to focused states at will.

See www.drbiofeedback.com, www.aapb.com, www.isnr.org, www.pocket-neurobics.com

George von Hilsheimer, Ph.D., F.R.S.H., and Peter Freer, MAEd