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Brain Fitness Program Improves Symptoms in Patients With ADHD, PCS, Memory Loss
A 12-week “brain fitness” program significantly improved neurocognitive measures as well as anxiety, sleep, and other symptoms in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-concussion syndrome, or memory loss, according to a study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease Reports.
“These preliminary findings appear to show that multimodal interventions, which are known to increase neuroplasticity in the brain, when personalized, can have benefits for patients with cognitive symptoms from a variety of neurological conditions,” wrote corresponding author Majid Fotuhi, MD, PhD, of the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at George Washington University, Washington, DC, and study coauthors.
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The program included twice-weekly, 90-minute sessions of cognitive training, healthy lifestyle coaching, and electroencephalography (EEG)-based neurofeedback at an outpatient neurology practice over 3 months. Among the 223 children and adults who participated in the study, 71 had ADHD, 88 had post-concussion syndrome, and 64 had mild cognitive impairment or subjective cognitive decline categorized as “memory loss.”
Before and after the intervention, participants underwent a comprehensive neurocognitive evaluation, which included tests of verbal memory, complex attention, processing speed, executive function, and a neurocognition index (a summary of multiple cognitive domains). Participants also answered questions about sleep, mood, diet, exercise, anxiety, and depression and received a quantitative EEG.
For all patient subgroups, scores after the intervention were significantly improved on most neurocognitive measures, according to the study. For the post-concussion syndrome group in particular, score improvement was significant for every measure tested.
The ADHD group did not show improvement in verbal memory, the study found. The largest effect size for improvement was in executive function for all subgroups.
“After receiving one-on-one coaching to improve their lifestyle choices, brain training, and neurofeedback, 60% to 90% of patients reported having fewer sleep, mood, anxiety, and a list of other neurocognitive and neurobehavioral symptoms,” researchers wrote. “Patients also experienced higher post-program ‘brain fitness’ scores, which is an in-house measure of optimal brain function and quality of life.”
The study’s promising results warrant more research into similar interventions for patients with ADHD, PCS, and memory loss, researchers advised.
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