About ADD: Symptoms and Treatment Options

What is ADD:

Young boy with ADD

Attention deficit disorder (ADD) is a disorder that is applied mainly to children and sometimes adults who consistently find it difficult to inhibit spontaneous responses over at least a six month period.

Symptoms of ADD:

1. Short attention span making focus and concentration difficult.
2. Inability to complete a task, especially tasks that are uninteresting.
3. Easily distracted while doing activities and tasks.
4. Impulsive.
5. Difficulty turning in paper and assignments.
6. Often misses or overlooks details.
7. Loses or forgets important things.
8. Has difficulty waiting in lines.
9. Says or does things without thinking through the consequence.
10. Blurts out answers.

It is important to note that everyone may experience one or a few of these symptoms. Seek out help if any of the above symptoms become debilitating and interfere with normal daily life.

Treatment options for ADD
There are various treatment options for ADD. First, is to medicate. Usually medicine is more accessible to the general population than other forms of treatment. It is also highly recommended by pediatricians because that is what they do... prescribe medication. Although medication can be a great "quick fix" there are also many side affects such as loss of appetite which leads to malnutrition, dulled personality that is often described as being like a zombie, and sleep difficulties.

A second option is neurofeedback which is a non-invasive approach that can help improve ADD permanently. It is becoming more popular due to people wanting an alternative method to medication.  Neurofeedback is a way to retrain different areas of the brain that regulate impulse control and executive functions. A benefit to neurofeedback is that there are no side affects. On the opposite side, neurofeedback does not give immediate day to day result when you first start training which can be difficult for parents to manage. 

Last, research shows that alterations to diet can improve certain behavior in those whom are diagnosed with ADD. Simply reducing certain foods such as processed sugar and red food dye and adding enzymes and vitamins can reduce or eliminate them all together. A benefit to changing your or a child's diet is that there is no harm to it!

How Neurofeedback Helps Attention Issues

Child with Attention Issues

Overview

The inability to pay attention is gaining rapid interest in the medical and psychology field because of the increase in people who suffer from this problem.  Research has shown in the past two decades there has been a significant increase of children who have been diagnosed with attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention-deficit disorder (ADD).  Children who are affected by this disorder tend to struggle with paying attention in school, doing homework and chores, and other tasks that require a certain amount of focus and concentration in a given amount of time.  Their relationships may also be affected because people do not understand why they have such a difficult time completing tasks.

Symptoms that may indicate attention issues

Sometime as a parent it may be difficult to know if your child is struggling because children in general are active, curious, and excited about life. The key to knowing if your child may have attention issues is if he or she cannot focus and calm down when they know they need to get a certain task done.  Here are a list of specific symptoms that may also indicate a problem.

-Difficult paying attention to details and often producing messy work.

-Easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli that others typically ignore.

-Inability to sustain attention on tasks.

-Difficulty following through and finishing tasks.

-Frequent shifts from one uncompleted task to another.

-Procrastination

-Forgetfulness in daily activities such as turning in assignments.

-Disorganization

-Impulsive decision-making.

The cause of attention issues

The inability to pay attention is not a result of laziness or low intelligence, the problem actually stems from the way a person’s brain is wired. Researchers have shown through brain image studies that people who have ADHD or ADD have decreased activity in their frontal lobes compared to people who can focus and complete tasks with little difficulty. The frontal lobes are the part of the brain that controls executive functioning skills such as organizing, focusing, problem solving, short-term memory, impulse control, and attention. Because the brain is under stimulated in that area it has a difficult executing these skills.

How neurofeedback can help attention issues

Neuroeedback is a non-medication approach that works directly with the brain to retrain the frontal lobes. To do this, the brain is observed from moment to moment through an EEG and receives feedback from a computerized game or scene when it responds in the desired manner that promotes positive behavior. Continual reinforcement will eventually lead the brain to self regulation of executive functioning skills.

Sources:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/174722-adhd-the-frontal-lobe/

http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/guide/adhd-symptoms

http://www.myadhd.com/causesofadhd.html

http://www.scholastic.com/resources/article/understanding-attention-problems/

All accessed July 23, 2011