Low-Energy Neurofeedback Treatment for ADD and ADHD
(ADDitude Magazine)
Developed by Dr. Len Ochs, in 1992, LENS has had extraordinary results using weak electromagnetic fields to stimulate brain-wave activity and restore brain flexibility. A controlled study of 100 subjects with different diagnoses — ADHD, traumatic brain injury, bipolar disorder — showed that 90 percent of them did better after LENS.
The brain emits different types of waves, depending on whether we are in a focused state or daydreaming. The goal of neurofeedback is to teach a person to produce brain-wave patterns that reflect focus. The result: Some ADHD symptoms – impulsivity and distractibility – diminish.
The low-energy neurofeedback system (LENS) works differently: It doesn’t try to reproduce a certain brain wave, but rather enhances the brain’s ability to adapt to a task, whether it be taking tests in school or struggling to get along with friends.
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ADD and Parenting
Excerpt from…
Superparenting for ADD
Superparenting for ADD: an Innovative Approach to Raising Your Distracted Child
2008 Random House, hardback page 162
Dr Edward Hallowell, MD
by Edward M Hallowell, MD, pediatric psychiatric clinician, former Harvard Medical School instructor, author of Delivered from Distraction, parent of ADD children, himself an adult with ADD.
Dr Edward Hallowell, MD, ADD expert, author of Driven to Distraction
Neurofeedback
Here Peter and I agree that this treatment is not yet formally proven effective. For years neurofeedback, a therapy that provides real-time information about brain wave activity and helps teach people to change those patterns of activity, had made sense to me, but I didn’t use it in my practice because it seemed too cumbersome and expensive. In traditional neurofeedback, the client has to go to the practitioner’s office once or twice a week for thirty of forty weeks, each session costing around $100. For a therapy that was unproven, that seemed like too much. Still, the basic idea continued to appeal to me.
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We want to share something that worked for our ADD/LD children
LENS (Low Energy Neurofeedback System) is a breakthrough treatment for quick behavior changes and improvements in learning. We have seen it work with our children and ourselves–here’s our story:
Our son was diagnosed with ADHD and learning disabilities after three “ordinary” falls at age 5. We tried many therapies and medications, with only moderate improvements. We kept searching for a way to return his brain to age-appropriate functioning. He is 20 now, and we finally found something that worked.
“The Low Energy Neurofeedback System is a recent development in brainwave biofeedback that restores optimal mental functioning. LENS is a significant treatment breakthrough, one of the most important developments we have seen in decades of practicing and teaching psychotherapy. It’s like pushing the reset button on your brain. The brain returns to its natural, healthy state.”
Unlike traditional brain wave tutoring, LENS does not require expensive testing and concentrated effort over forty sessions—our son could never sit still for that! Lens treatments are passive and only last a few minutes. A few EEG wires placed on the head mirror back the brain’s extremely faint electromagnetic signals. The brain does all the work changing itself. After the first session or two we noticed improvements, which continued to get stronger.
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Hidden ADD Symptoms: a Parent’s Story
Our daughter was an A and B student in school who got along well with everyone. She was so cooperative and earnest that we didn’t think she had a problem– she just had to work harder at school than her friends. Yet…
- Homework took forever
- Reading was a chore
- Facts didn’t stick in her long-term memory
- She couldn’t access what she did know for a quiz
- She was exhausted after a full night’s sleep
- She was distracted easily
LENS Neurofeedback Results
After a half-dozen sessions of LENS neurofeedback, we noticed her concentration improved remarkably. We had never thought of her as having Attention Deficit Disorder, but her memory problem unfolded as the inability to focus on a fact long enough to own it. With help from the Low Energy Neurofeedback System, her distracted brain settled into the present moment.
- She remembers facts as well as her classmates
- She takes tests easily
- She reads just for pleasure
- She wakes in the morning up rested, and has more energy all day
- She makes me proud with her creative writing
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How It Works. If you decide to undergo LENS treatment, a practitioner will first take a detailed family history and do a brain map. “The map will show connectivity problems — sites that are under-connected and over-connected,” says Stephen Larsen, Ph.D., author of The Healing Power of Neurofeedback and a LENS practitioner at the Stone Mountain Center, in New Paltz, New York. “Some sites of the brain are like a city in a blackout.”
Based on the map, the practitioner will treat four brain sites per session with radio frequencies, produced by a machine to which the patient is hooked up. The radio frequencies will gently stimulate those areas that are sluggish, and will take the edge off high-frequency sites. “Most of the session is spent talking to the patient about whether the last treatment improved symptoms,” says Larsen.
Copyright © 1998 – 2011 New Hope Media LLC
Article 2, continued
Then, several years ago, I gave a presentation at a conference where I met Dr. Len Ochs. He told me about a new form of neurofeedback that he had developed. In his version, the client typically only needs fifteen to twenty sessions, and each session involves only a few minutes of brain stimulation. There is no hour-long active training, in which the client works, for example, to make a car go faster across a screen; instead the client sits passively for a few minutes as ultra-low-energy radio waves, one-thousandth of the energy you get from a cell phone, are passed through the brain. As treatments continue, the brain-wave readings change.
Ochs calls his method low-energy neurofeedback stimulation, or LENS. He has had good results with it in treating a variety of conditions including ADD and anxiety. Ochs doesn’t know exactly how LENS works, but it has helped many people with ADD and anxiety.
I was so impressed that I asked one of the clinicians who works with me, Rebecca Shafir, to get trained in LENS. Not only did she get the training, she now offers LENS as an alternative treatment for clients who come to my center in Massachusetts, and we also offer it in my New York office.
We have seen excellent results, especially in adults who have ADD. LENS seems to help them come out of their fog, without medication. The more I learned and the more positive results I saw, the more impressed I became. I wondered what LENS would do for me if I had the treatment. My ADD is under control; I have unwrapped the gift, so to speak. But I’d had one symptom for most of my life that bothered me; I couldn’t stop worrying about stupid stuff. It made me less happy and calm than I should have been. So I thought I would try LENS and see what happened.
It was amazing. My friends, my wife, and the people who work with me will all tell you that I am more relaxed and less reactive than I’ve ever been. I can tell you that a black knot inside me has been untied. I don’t brood and ruminate the way I used to. And no, I am not on the payroll of LENS. I am just a very satisfied customer!
Without Peter’s prompting, let me hasten to add that this is purely anecdotal evidence and means nothing scientifically. Just as with cerebellar stimulation, we need carefully designed, prospective, controlled studies by independent researchers. But it seems to me foolish not to report on what I’ve seen and experienced just because a study has not yet been done.
(editor’s note: several studies have been done since this was written).
© 2008 Edward Hallowell, MD
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And after 15 treatments our son is a different person in these ways:
Concentration: He went from tolerating thirty minutes of study, to concentrating for three hours straight.
Confidence: Without inappropriate impulses, he believes he can fit in. For the first time since age five he feels socially confident.
Focus and Memory: Now he can focus on facts long enough to remember them.
Frustration Tolerance: His explosive frustration is gone.
Completion: With far less procrastination, projects get finished.
Joy: His underlying happiness and kindness became his normal state, even in challenging situations.
Our DaughterWe also have an ADD (inattentive type) daughter whose memory problems, when unwrapped during LENS treatment, turned out to be difficulties with distraction and anxiety.
LENS is not experimental–75,000 people have been treated worldwide. But it’s just now becoming better known, with a new major study about adult ADD to be published next year.
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ADHD inattentive type verses ADHD hyperactive type
We learned that Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder doesn’t always mean impulsivity and hyperactivity. Compliant children may also be lost in an internal world of distractions, making them inattentive to what is going on around them. Specifically, cooperative girls often cover their inability to focus by making extra effort, and usually remain undiagnosed as ADHD (inattentive type, aka ADD) until they reach a grade-level that challenges them beyond their ability to compensate.
Head Trauma and ADHD
Therapists at Echo Rock Therapy Center also asked us to remember if our daughter ever “saw stars” from an accident or fall, because mild traumatic brain injury, (concussion) often causes symptoms that can be described as ADHD. Yep, she hit her head on a concrete floor, and again at basketball practice, about the time her mental processing speed slowed. It all made sense.
LENS helps SAT Test Scores
I’m so glad the Low Energy Neurofeedback System works. My daughter continued to improve over a course of sixteen sessions. She is testing well on the PSAT and is confident for the first time about her scores on the ACT and SAT. She has raised her sights to competitive colleges. I never thought she could be one of the “smart kids”, but now she is.
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© 2011 Echo Rock Therapy Center
