Every Wednesday is Date Night at our house. The babysitter comes and sits with our daughter and we go do all sorts of things, from mini-golf to historical walking tours to interesting lectures. Last Wednesday was a lecture at the library a few towns over from a local Clinical Psychologist about neurofeedback as an alternative to ritalin for people with ADD/ADHD. My husband has ADD and we thought it would be interesting to hear what she has to say about a way for him to possibly address the problem without medication.
She had lots to say, much of it very interesting but much of it a little :dubious: as well. According to her she has successfully used neurofeedback to help cure or dramatically improve ADD/ADHD, insomnia, migranes, CP, aspergers, addiction, depression, and about 50 other major problems people deal with every day. Within 10 sessions people start seeing positive changes and within 40-50 sessions most people have been cured or dramatically improved and the changes appear to be permanent. It is apparently painless and administered while you chill out and watch a video and basically trains your brain with positive feedback to alter the whacked out brainwaves that cause so many problems. Between my husband’s ADD and my insomnia we both feel like this could be an awesome answer to a couple of very big problems in our lives, but of course we are very hesitant to sign up for this based on her word alone.
I did some research at work (I’m in health insurance) and I found that our company won’t cover neurofeedback except as a cure for migranes, and even then they cover it only if other treatments haven’t worked, because they feel like there isn’t nearly enough evidence to prove this is an effective treatment. We are leaning towards forgetting about this whole thing but I don’t want to just write it off if it really does work.
Has anyone here ever used neurofeedback to address problems they’ve had in the past? Is it the psychiatric equivalent of snake oil or a legitimate medical treatment?
