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Biofeedback
widens its role in medicine
(WebMD)
-- It looks like a scene from a 1950s science fiction flick: Patients
with electrodes attached to their skulls sit deep in concentration,
focusing their minds to control the beeps and squiggly lines produced
by an electronic monitor. Now
these fantastic visions are unfolding with increasing frequency in
real medical clinics around the country; people with epilepsy,
attention deficit disorder and other forms of serious mental illness
are treating these ailments by learning to control electrical patterns
in their own brains. This therapy, known as neurofeedback, is emerging
as the hottest new twist on biofeedback. Though
biofeedback was first developed by psychologists, its primary uses
have been for illnesses below the neck. Standard biofeedback teaches
you first to become conscious of normally unconscious functions such
as pulse, digestion and body temperature, then teaches you to control
them in response to sounds or other cues from monitoring devices.
These techniques have allowed patients to lower their blood pressure,
banish their headaches and control their incontinence without using
drugs. Now
new insights into the biology of mental illness have made it possible
to treat them in a similar fashion. Aerobics for the brain
In
neurofeedback (also known as neurotherapy), therapists attach
electrodes to patients' unshaved scalps. Through these electrodes, a
device measures electrical impulses in the brain, amplifies them and
then records them. These impulses are divided into different types of
brain waves. For
example, in order to concentrate on a task, parts of the brain must
produce more high-frequency beta waves. To relax, the brain must
produce more low-frequency theta waves. Using
a program similar to a computer game (only without a joystick), people
learn to control the video display by achieving the mental state that
produces increases in the desired brain wave. Some practitioners call
it "aerobics for the brain." In
epilepsy, where once only medications and surgery could reduce
seizures, neurofeedback is showing results. A German study published
in the April 1999 journal Clinical Neurophysiology found that
two-thirds of epilepsy patients could reduce their seizure rate by
learning to control very low frequency brain waves in the cortex. "In
people with epilepsy, part of the brain has become unstable, and
occasionally it triggers the rest of the brain into seizure,"
explains Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D., an Encino, California, physicist who
trains biofeedback therapists. "Neurofeedback may help stabilize
those circuits and reduce the probability of seizures." New understanding
The
use of neurofeedback for psychiatric problems depends on recent
understanding about these diseases. In the 1960s, when biofeedback was
developed as a therapy, schizophrenia and attention deficit were
considered mainly the result of emotional trauma or poor upbringing. Consequently,
biofeedback practitioners first focused on obviously physical problems.
Now scientists understand better the electrical and chemical
components of mental illness, creating opportunities for neurofeedback. Children
with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) use neurofeedback
games to reduce theta waves and increase beta waves, increasing their
attentiveness. Joel Lubar, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, who originated neurofeedback treatment for ADHD
in the 1970s, says neurofeedback can produce some of the same brain
wave changes as drugs used to treat the disorder. In
a 1998 study published in the December issue of Applied
Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, researchers in Ontario, Canada,
taught ADHD patients biofeedback and learning strategies. They found a
significant improvement in symptoms (such as impulsiveness and
inattention) after 40 EEG biofeedback sessions, as well as a change in
the ratio of beta to theta waves. "Biofeedback
can not only help a child use brain waves they don't usually employ,
but it may also help increase blood flow to specific parts of the
brain involved with ADHD," says Lubar. "Used with behavior
therapies that incorporate classroom and homework skills,
neurofeedback can help these children become less dependent on
stimulants like Ritalin." More
than 700 groups nationwide are using EEG biofeedback for ADD/ADHD,
according to the Association for Applied Psychotherapy and Biofeedback,
an organization of biofeedback practitioners. The ADHD therapists have
reported that patients experienced a 60 to 80 percent significant
improvement in symptoms and much less need for medicine. Dr.
J. Alan Cook, a psychiatrist in Mt. Vernon, Washington, uses it for 25
to 35 percent of his patients, treating such problems as depression,
addiction, bipolar disorder and ADHD. "Once the training has been
completed, patients seem to retain the benefits long term," he
says. Crossing
a new frontier in neurotherapy, researchers from London, England,
reported in the December 1999 International Journal of
Psychophysiology that a group of schizophrenic people had used
neurofeedback to create some of the same electrical patterns that
schizophrenia drugs produce in the brain. Though the investigators
couldn't tell from this short experiment how the neurofeedback might
affect the patients' symptoms, they considered it a successful first
step toward developing a new treatment. As
scientists understand better how the brain works -- or fails to work
-- they are finding more and more ways it can heal itself. ©
2000 Healtheon/WebMD. All rights reserved.
RELATEDS
AT : ADHD:
Brainwave biofeedback for focus and concentration RELATED
SITES: The
Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback Linha Direta: (0xx21) 2286-4781 - Cel: 9997 3011 |
