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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
Cogmed, the several hundred apps, the balance based programmes: they all hit the same wall when someone independent tests them with a proper control condition. Even a product that had cleared regulators showed no change in ADHD symptoms at home or school in its own first trial. Clearance answers a different question from the one a parent is asking.
Those who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down (Quran 3:191). A practice worth having is one that travels with you through the day rather than staying where you learned it.
آل عمران
ٱلَّذِينَ يَذۡكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَٰمࣰ ا وَقُعُودࣰ ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمۡ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلۡقِ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقۡتَ هَٰذَا بَٰطِلࣰ ا سُبۡحَٰنَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ ٱلنَّارِ
who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down, who reflect on the creation of the heavens and earth: ‘Our Lord! You have not created all this without purpose- You are far above that!- so protect us from the torment of the Fire
Qur’an 3:191read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Two studies mark the edges of this. A randomised trial of Cogmed in school age children with ADHD, using a properly matched control condition, found no advantage. A different trial that trained several executive functions inside a computer game, controlling for motivation and time on task, did produce some improvement. So the honest position is not that nothing could ever work, but that the marketed products have not shown it where it counts.
Chacko A, Bedard AC, Marks DJ, Feirsen N, Uderman JZ, Chimiklis A, Rajwan E, Cornwell M, Anderson L, Zwilling A, Ramon M. (2014). A randomized clinical trial of Cogmed Working Memory Training in school-age children with ADHD: a replication in a diverse sample using a control condition.. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines doi
Dovis S, Van der Oord S, Wiers RW, Prins PJ. (2015). Improving executive functioning in children with ADHD: training multiple executive functions within the context of a computer game. a randomized double-blind placebo controlled trial.. PloS one doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Practice improves the thing you practised, and daily life is not that thing.
If someone has genuine positional vertigo, get it treated, and do not expect the treatment to touch their ADHD. Both things can be true at the same time.
The amount in a capsule can vary from bottle to bottle, and sometimes between capsules in the same bottle. Undeclared fillers have been found in them too.
Omega supplementation for ADHD began with encouraging results, including a Swedish study where about a quarter of inattentive children seemed to improve. Blinded, placebo controlled work did not reproduce it, and a Cochrane meta-analysis found no effect.