Videogames Used to Treat ADHD

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."

Re:Nice to see something unabigously good

[Anonymous Coward]

Studies have indeed shown a causal relationship between video games and hyperactivity, attention deficit, and violence.

You know, I get really, really tired of people pulling the "studies have shown" card. It would be nice (better than nice, it would decrease the flow of FUD on the internet and IRL) if people were held to the same standards that people publishing scholarly papers were held to; namely, publishing your sources. Watch and learn, kids:

Most studies [pbs.org] found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment.

Yes, I'm drumming the words of Henry Jenkins. But perhaps this [uchicago.edu] will help? Or this [iastate.edu]? I mean, try these phrases on for size:

Even if we accept that there is a correlation between amount of time spent playing (violent) video games and aggressive behavior, there is no reason to think that games are the cause of aggression.

However, the correlational nature of Study 1 means that causal statements are risky at best. It could be that obtained video game game violence links to aggressive and nonaggressive delinquency are wholly due to the fact that highly aggressive individuals are especially are especially attracted to violent video games.

Now, I could attack your argument (and in a way, at least, I have) but I take issue mostly with the bandying of the phrase "studies have shown" without so much as a reference to the studies in question. It is the worst kind of sloppy intellectualism that presumes all people everywhere are aware of these studies and that their validity is a foregone conclusion; indeed, it smacks of my mother-in-law forwarding her latest round of AOL-Microsoft mergers and get-rich-quick email forwarding scams.

Re:Great!

[Intruger]

They're selling a crippled EEG machine for $500 which doesn't even give the read out of the brain activities. If you are semi serious about this, I would suggest you take a look at OpenEEG [sourceforge.net]. It's a opensource DIY modular EEG machine that costs around $200 to build (there is also a partialy build version available). There are several free games, and the best thing is, it's not limit to the Playstation (supports Win, Mac, Linux, PocketPC, etc.).

Of course if you want to make sense of the readings, you need to know how to interpret the brainwave patterns. There are several book on this subject; the more popular ones are:
Getting Started with Neurofeedback [amazon.com]
The High-Performance Mind [amazon.com]

Re:Great!

[RockModeNick]

I'm not sure I'd say there is no such disease - I just think we classify people not able to control their own focus and concentration past a certain point as having a distorder, much as we classify people over a certain body weight as obese. An obese person might have a hormonal condition causing it, or they might just be a little to fond of Chili's Babyback ribs, but classification is the same. It certainly isn't a disease in the germ sense, it's more considered a classification of a person past a certain point on a spectrum to people trained in this type of thing.

Re:Great!

[dubl-u]

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 [amazon.com] 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 [tv-b-gone.com], 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.

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

A few years ago Malcolm Gladwell wrote an interesting piece on Ritalin and A.D.H.D., which can be found here [gladwell.com]. While I haven't verified the accuracy of his reporting, it suggests that the symptoms of A.D.H.D. may become apparent when you look at how well the children play video games, instead of how long the children play them. Here is the related excerpt:

When A.D.H.D. kids are actually tested on activities like video games, however, this alleged "good fit" disappears. Rosemary Tannock, a behavioral scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children, in Toronto, recently looked at how well a group of boys between the ages of eight and twelve actually did at Pac Man and Super Mario World, and she found that the ones with A.D.H.D. completed fewer levels and had to restart more games than their unaffected peers. "They often failed to inhibit their forward trajectory and crashed headlong into obstacles," she explained. A.D.H.D. kids may like the stimulation of a video game, but that doesn't mean they can handle it.

Re:Great!

[Fished]

I agree that drugs should not be the first attempt at a solution, and agree completely that any approach must include parental involvement and non-medication support and training. I'm also glad that you found something that works for you.

Of course, the fact that he did raises doubt about the diagnosis. It could easily be Bipolar or something, in which case the fact that talk therapy helped is not surprising. However, study after study after study after study has shown that no non-drug-therapy for ADHD is particularly effective.

Re:Great!

[rynthetyn]

As long as there are medications for ADHD, there's going to be a debate about medicating kids who are diagnosed with ADHD. I think that's a good thing, I would hate for us as a society to reach a point where people will just toss a bunch of drugs at kids with no dissenting voices questioning whether that's the right way to go.

I made it through 12 years of schooling, 4 years of college, and wasn't diagnosed with ADD until after I graduated college. If my grades had been bad somebody might have noticed sooner, but since I'm blessed with an excellent memory and the ability to BS my way through topics that I know virtually nothing about while sounding like an expert, I always did well in school despite being easily distracted and doing the bare minimum work. A few months after I graduated college I was kid sitting for some people I knew and for lack of anything else to read I picked up the book they had on ADHD and realized that the book was describing me almost completely.

End result, I decided to give medication a try, mainly because by that point I was tired of trying to adapt my ADD self into a non-ADD world and wanted to see what "normal" was like. Upshot was, after a few months taking Strattera, I reached the conclusion that if that was what "normal" was like than I'd rather not be normal. I'm happier when my brain works the way it was made to work, because my greatest strengths come from things that are "symptoms" of ADD.