ADHD Tough Case?

[Guest guest]

Group,

I am really in need of some collective advice. I would love to hear from

all, especially those who have had some success in a case similar to what I

am about to describe. I need specific detailed advice. All is welcomed.

I've got a 8 YO AD(H)D son, Jake. He has had 120+ sessions of NFB - SMR

reward/theta inhibit (this was all I knew then). My theory is that this

has perhaps moved him out of the hyperactivity class and can now be

considered primarily ADD type. Last school year teachers ratings support

the ADD classification. My wife and I would say we have seen no overall

change from the NFB sessions, but perhaps we are overlooking the subtle

changes that have occurred.

I did a TLC assessment on Jake several months ago and recently took Pete's

level I and II training in Milwaukee. Great class! Pete suggested I do

another assessment which I did this last week-end. Results were comparable

with the first assessment as far as my novice experience can tell. Based

on my understanding of what I learned from Pete, the primary finding from

Jake's assessment is that he has reverse activation of the Theta/Beta

ratios (they go down from EO/EC to Task) which puts him in the category of

Processing problems (ADD inattentive type). Am I correct that this is a

determination for Processing problems? This is consistent with my

subjective assessment with Processing issues being #1. However my wife's

subjective assessment rated Filtering issues #1 with Processing as #3, but

there was not so much of a point spread between them. By the way - C4 SMR

EO is 10.3% and was 9.6 from the first assessment I did. I assume this

tells me that SMR is generally OK since Pete said the target was 10.

Pete indicated he would look at Jake's assessment and help me out with a

training plan, but I know he is pretty busy right now and I want to hear

the opinions of what some of you might have to say. I figured I could

benefit from what others have to say on this issue, and maybe someone out

there is in the same boat as I and can benefit from this too.

Other important information:

A) Jake does not respond very well to any of the stimulants including

Stratera, but does show some improvement in his classroom performance when

on Concerta.

My ranking of Jake's main issues are: 1) behavioral problems at home,

2) very easily bored and unable to play on his own, 3) fine/gross motor

delays and muscle tone issues, 4) LD's including difficulty in reading

and very poor handwriting, 5) difficulty in getting along with friends.

So why do I consider him a tough case? We have tried various diet and food

elimination methods, vitamin/mineral balance with Pfeiffer Treatment

Center, vision therapy, OT for sensory integration issues, various

tutoring and reading/writing programs for the LD issues, Interactive

Metronome, various seminars and professional help for the behavioral

problems (for tactics used by mom and dad), EEG biofeedback, and a few

other things I am sure I missed.

Also of interest is a recent QEEG we had done on Jake indicated he may be

" beta subtype " AD(H)D among other things that were suggested including

LD's. I have yet to get my hands on some good information about the

subject of beta subtype ADHD. We also had a SPECT done the same day as the

Q but they only did the inactive state and I do feel we really got a very

good interpretation of it. I have yet to really figure out yet what

category of Dr. Amen's Jake fits into but it has been quite a while since I

studied his material. Dr. Amen's work uses the active state SPECT so the

one I got of Jake is of no use for comparison.

In closing, my goal is to get Jake back on a training program of EEG

biofeedback. I would like to try HEG but right now I am still waiting to

come up with the funds and since I have all of the equipment for EEG, I

would like to see if I can make some progress with it first.

Sorry for the long post. I appreciate any input.

Tim Fishel