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Videogames Used to Treat ADHD

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the playing-mario-as-therapy dept.

deeptrace writes "USA today has an article about a videogame based treatment for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). It uses NASA derived technology to measure brainwave activity while playing videogames. Clinical psychologist Henry Owens says 'If they just play videogames on their own, they will zone out. When they play on this system, if they zone out [as detected by brainwave activity], the videogame doesn't respond any more' This is supposed to help the patient increase the ability to focus and concentrate."

7 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's perfect for

    1. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Reminds me of a joke ...

      Q. What's the best solution to deal with an ADHD kid?
      A. Send them to concentration camp!

    2. Re:Great! by dubl-u · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here is a test to see if there is really adhd. Put one of these kids in front of their favorite video game. (I have never seen a kid in front of their favorite video game zone out, they are completely engrossed in the game) If they can play it for more the 30 minutes at a time without a break, then they have no problem concentrating.

      Hi. Might I suggest you do something crazy like, say, reading a book about ADHD? Hallowell and Ratey's book Driven to Distraction is a great start. It's written by two licensed psychiatrists who both have ADD.

      In there you will learn that "Attention Deficit Disorder" is an unfortunate misnomer, and that part of the disorder is very strong focus on things that are sufficiently stimulating. They mention that a better name would be something like "Attention Inconsistency Disorder".

      As somebody diagnosed with ADD in college, I believe it's a real thing. My attentional mechanisms are definitely different than most people. I am very distractable, and can also be very focused in certain rare circumstancess. I have learned to act like normal people do, but it has taken me years of practice, and I have a host of special tricks to pass.

      I agree with you that sugar, caffeine, and television can aggravate things. I don't own a TV, but do own a TV-B-Gone, the universal TV off button, so that I can keep up a conversation in places where nobody is watching the TV but it still blares away. And my personal guess is that it's not a disorder in the traditional sense, but rather a genetic difference that was adaptive in certain environments, even if it is not adaptive in certain particular modern circumstances.

      But I still think that difference exists, and modern society treating it as a "disability" is better than sweeping it under the rug like they used to. The various medications they have are interesting and I found them helpful in understanding exploring ways to think and be. I don't take them anymore, but if a kid diagnosed with ADD is still having trouble in school after eliminating environmental aggravators and working on organization and study skills, I think it's negligent not to offer them the opportunity to try the various meds to see if something helps. I sure would have benefitted by trying them earlier than college.

    3. Re:Great! by johansalk · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Please mod parent down. You smoke pot because you smoke pot, it has little to do with your illness. I empathise with you somewhat because I was an autistic child, in fact severely so, and I still am an autistic adult and will be till I die. Not saying autism and ADHD are the same, but I too suffer problems that would benefit from some calming, such as severe social anxiety, obsessions and compulsions, and so on. I have experimented with recreational drugs a little, such as pot; you don't help yourself in the long term, you're just screwing yourself up some more. There are plenty of things you can do to calm yourself down, other than pot. I have heard people use many, many excuses for their drug use; I'm sorry to say this, but ADHD or not, from reading your post, you just sound like a regular junkie. I know jukies too well. I live around them, I won't accept their bullshit of blaming someone else for their drug indulgence.

  2. Oh, it's both... by Garwulf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's definitely both.

    There are people who honestly have a neurological imbalance that causes them to have difficulty completing tasks, and in these cases drugs like Ritalin are a godsend, allowing them to normalize their routines. I know one or two people who have that, and without their medicine, they can make a ferret look like the paragon of focus and concentration.

    On the other hand, ADD and ADHD make for a wonderful scapegoat for when children are acting up. Bright children being bored out of their skull in class? Must be ADD. I know from personal experience on this one - when I was a kid I was misdiagnosed with it, and I thank God that I had parents who knew enough to ask for a second opinion. It turned out that I was bored in class and reacting to food additives. Once I got into a gifted program in school and I stopped eating food I was reacting to, I settled right down.

    It really does drive me nuts. Back in the 1980s when I was misdiagnosed, the misdiagnosis happened because ADD was "fashionable." Now it's an excuse. Pump kids full of sugar and chemicals and of course they're going to be hyperactive. Make them sit still in a classroom doing boring things and of course they're going to get restless. I just wish more medical professionals would rule out the obvious causes first before doping the kids up for having AD(H)D that they might not actually have.

    --
    Robert B. Marks
    Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
  3. I am tired of this "disorder" crap by PipeIsArt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is really starting to piss me off. Why is it that we must label everything that is not perfectly matched to our current society's customs as a disorder? I am ADHD. The main feature of ADHD is a different brain structure where the gap between neurons is larger (which is why only the strongest chemicals, i.e. the most impulsive chemicals, get through most of the time and why stimulants like Ritalin actually seem to calm someone wiht ADHD down). As such the brain of one with ADHD is does not think in the way that most people think. But that does not make us any worse than avg. Joe. It is not a disorder, but an evolution in the human brain. While it is harder for those with ADHD to stay focused in many environments put in front of us today, we have the uncanny abilities to: 1) be able to notice many different facets of our environment in a very short span of time and 2) we can hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is the concentration on a subject so intense that the rest of the world completely fades out (many programmers, such as myself, know what I am talking about). From TFA, it seems that scientists are trying to "cure" this "disorder". But why? How about focusing an creating teaching environments where people with ADHD can thrive and harness th advatanges ADHD gives them while minimizing its disadvantages? It has been said that some of the greatest forththright thinkers and creative minds of out time have had ADHD. Albert Einstein is theorized to have had the disorder. Also, the owner of Kinkos has ADHD and Dyslexia. It is not a disease, but a change. I hope someday the scientific community will realize that.

    --
    I find that although many people are liberal in beliefs, they are conservative in actions.
  4. No, you are absolutely, undeniably wrong. by Tetris+Ling · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have ADHD. You are wrong. Allow me to help you understand. The mistake you make, which is a common misconception, is that ADHD is actually a deficit of attention. That's not exactly correct. ADHD is more like an inability to control and regulate your attention. Most people with ADHD have the ability to hyperfocus. That is, when you will focus on something to the point of being unable to focus on anything else. Unfortunately, this isn't something ADHD can trigger at will. As I said, ADHD is the inability to control attention.

    There is quite a bit more to ADHD than just short attention spans. It has many other far-reaching effects beyond the stereotypical loopy behavior most people think of, such as persistant problems with time management, task prioritization, motivation, and other executive brain functions.

    Sugar and caffine are not the causes of ADHD. (In fact, before methyphenidate, caffine was used as a treatment for ADHD). Dietary treatments for ADHD have had mixed results at best. Medication for ADHD is not a cure, by any stretch of the mind, but it can dramaticaly help. Please do not dismiss something just because of what you have heard on TV. Just a little bit of research would teach you a lot, I think.