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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Treatment and medication
Regulatory clearance answers whether a device is safe enough to be sold, not whether it beats what you are already doing. One trial, funded by the company that makes the device, with no replication since, is where this currently stands. When a family asks about it, the fair answer gives them the promise, the nausea and the missing second study in the same breath.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
Only those who have understanding will take heed (Quran 39:9). Taking something seriously includes holding its side effects in view alongside its promise.
الزمر
أَمَّنۡ هُوَ قَٰنِتٌ ءَانَآءَ ٱلَّيۡلِ سَاجِدࣰ ا وَقَآئِمࣰ ا يَحۡذَرُ ٱلۡأٓخِرَةَ وَيَرۡجُواْ رَحۡمَةَ رَبِّهِۦۗ قُلۡ هَلۡ يَسۡتَوِي ٱلَّذِينَ يَعۡلَمُونَ وَٱلَّذِينَ لَا يَعۡلَمُونَۗ إِنَّمَا يَتَذَكَّرُ أُوْلُواْ ٱلۡأَلۡبَٰبِ
What about someone who worships devoutly during the night, bowing down, standing in prayer, ever mindful of the life to come, hoping for his Lord’s mercy? Say, ‘How can those who know be equal to those who do not know?’ Only those who have understanding will take heed
Qur’an 39:9read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a triple blind randomised controlled trial in adults with ADHD, standard EEG neurofeedback was tested against sham neurofeedback and against a meta-cognitive group therapy. Designs like that exist precisely because devices tend to look effective until a convincing dummy is put beside them. It concerns a different device in a different age group, so what it offers here is the standard any new device has to meet.
Schönenberg M, Wiedemann E, Schneidt A, Scheeff J, Logemann A, Keune PM, Hautzinger M. (2017). Neurofeedback, sham neurofeedback, and cognitive-behavioural group therapy in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: a triple-blind, randomised, controlled trial.. The lancet. Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A single unrepeated trial can be right, and it can also be the one that happened to come out well.
Anything worn nightly by a child belongs in a conversation with their doctor, particularly alongside other treatment.
Move the family's picture from a child who will not do as they are asked to a child whose capacity for holding themselves in place is genuinely limited. It is a change of category, not a softening.
Decide at the start what you are actually aiming at. Eight difficulties down to six, then to four, then perhaps to two. Never zero, because zero was never on offer.
Think of it the way you would think about diabetes. Something to manage with several things at once, most days, for as long as it is there.