ADHD: Alternative non-drug treatment.
It is estimated that 7% of children in the United States are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. This article describes a new way to treat ADHD without drugs, effective in only 20 treatments for the majority of patients.
Attention Deficit Disorder first became an
official "diagnosis" in 1980, through the American Psychiatric
Association (APA). In 1997, with an epidemic of 500,000 to 700,000 affected
children, the APA rewrote the criteria to include hyperactivity. ADD became
AD/HD. In 2005, the condition was even receiving attention from the venerable
New England Journal of Medicine.[1]
Children with ADD are withdrawn -
"the lights are on but nobody is home". This is the predominantly
"inattentive" type. Children with ADHD are anything but withdrawn. They
are unable to sit still, unable to focus on anything for more than a few
seconds. This is typical two-year old behavior which, in a six
or seven year old, becomes rapidly
intolerable.
How do we draw the line between "normal" childhood activity and "AD/HD"? According to the DSM IV ((the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)) criteria, a child must have 8 of the following 14 symptoms, to be diagnosed with AD/HD:
1. often
fidgets or squirms
2. has
trouble staying in one's seat
3. is
easily distracted
4. cannot
wait one's turn
5. blurts
out answers
6. has
trouble following instructions
7. cannot
sustain attention
8. shifts
from one activity to another
9. does
not play quietly
10. talks
excessively
11. interrupts
12. cannot
listen
13. loses
things
14. does
dangerous things
Psychiatrists typically treat children
with these symptoms with stimulant medication, like Ritalin, Celexa, or
Dexedrine. Increasingly they are resorting to antipsychotic medication as well,
like Abilify or Risperdol.
Do we really want to raise a generation of
children to think that the only way to treat their "bad" behavior is
to take a pill that changes the way their brains function? Do we really want
them to think that they are "broken" and need to be "fixed"
before they become acceptable to society?
How much better it would be to help them
realize that they are not broken, but rather just a little behind in their
development, and that there are things that they and their parents can do
themselves, to help them develop normally.
Several factors come into ADHD: when we consider normal development:
Diet and nutrition are of prime
importance. Sugar and artificial sweeteners[2] are well known to cause
hyperactivity in many children. Other children are adversely affected by food
additives and colorings.[3]
Exposure to toxicity is an increasingly
concerning issue. Children with elevated body burdens of lead are more easily
distracted, less organized, and more prone to aggressive behavior than children
without this burden. The average American infant, at birth, has more than 200
man-made chemicals in its body.[4] A study from the Cincinnati Children's
Hospital Medical Center confirmed a suspected link between prenatal tobacco
exposure and AD/HD, and demonstrates that the greater the level of blood lead,
the greater the risk of ADHA, according to Bruce Lanphear, MD, director of the
Children’s Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's and
corresponding author of the study.[5]
Food sensitivities[6] can cause immediate
deterioration of behavior in some children. Often these children have auditory
processing abnormalities, because they have had significant numbers of ear
infections as infants. These developmental insults affect they way they process
sensory information, often causing them to become hypersensitive to sound.
These are the children who cover their ears during school sing-alongs, and who
lose it in the malls when they go shopping.
In the final analysis, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a disorder of information processing which results in unacceptable behavior in both adults and children.
BrainAdvantageTM, a program of
neurotherapy, can improve information processing in only 20 sessions, restoring
normal neurologic functioning and socially acceptable behavior in a remarkably
short time.[7] The program addresses auditory processing, vestibular function,
timing and sequencing, rhythm and balance, cognitive development, and neural
development of the frontal lobes. All equipment used is FDA registered and
approved. No pharmaceutical medication is used.
The value of a program which treats
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder cannot be calculated by money alone.
Children with ADHD tend to grow up into adults with ADHD - only in the adult,
it generally turns into ADD because they no longer have the energy to spare for
the hyperactive component. Adults who cannot focus cannot get jobs that they
should be qualified for, and lose jobs they should be able to keep.[8]
By treating the origins of the dysfunction, using good nutrition, appropriate supplementation, and brain training through our BrainAdvantage™ program, we can avoid the need for dangerous stimulant medication. But most importantly, we give parents a way to restore their child’s health naturally and bring forth the person who got lost when the body’s functions got confused.
