Posted: 29 October 2012
The study was conducted by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), in collaboration with the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School.
20 children with ADHD (16 males, four females) who had significant symptoms of inattentiveness were recruited.
They played a computer game three times a week for eight weeks.
In the training game, the children wore headbands around their foreheads, with an electrode clipped to the earlobes.
They controlled an avatar via the signals detected by electrodes.
In order to move the avatar, the child would need to focus.
The system would measure the attention level and the game would proceed at a proportional speed.
The higher the concentration level of the child, the higher the speed of the avatar's movement.
The training programme included academic tasks at the end of every alternate session.
The intention was to train the child to learn to focus in the same way when performing academic work.
After the eight-week training program, patients showed significant improvement.
Those with more severe symptoms were also the ones who showed greater improvement.
Principal investigator Dr Lim Choon Guan from the IMH said the team is excited by the early result.
But he added that there are limitations to the study as the number of patients involved was small with no comparison group.
The team plans to have a larger trial over the next two years.
- CNA/xq
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Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Training programme may help ADHD patients: study
SINGAPORE: A study has shown promising results for using a special computer-based training programme as a potential new treatment for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The study was conducted by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), in collaboration with the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School.
20 children with ADHD (16 males, four females) who had significant symptoms of inattentiveness were recruited.
They played a computer game three times a week for eight weeks.
In the training game, the children wore headbands around their foreheads, with an electrode clipped to the earlobes.
They controlled an avatar via the signals detected by electrodes.
In order to move the avatar, the child would need to focus.
The system would measure the attention level and the game would proceed at a proportional speed.
The higher the concentration level of the child, the higher the speed of the avatar's movement.
The training programme included academic tasks at the end of every alternate session.
The intention was to train the child to learn to focus in the same way when performing academic work.
After the eight-week training program, patients showed significant improvement.
Those with more severe symptoms were also the ones who showed greater improvement.
Principal investigator Dr Lim Choon Guan from the IMH said the team is excited by the early result.
But he added that there are limitations to the study as the number of patients involved was small with no comparison group.
The team plans to have a larger trial over the next two years.
- CNA/xq
-----
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Training programme may help ADHD patients: study
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