Meet our March Provider of the Month Tom Burkard founder and creator of IMprove Japan. Tom began his journey with IM in 2004 when he traveled from Japan to Hawaii with his 11 year old son who has ADHD for IM training. Find out of how IM helped Tom's son and many other lives overseas!

A new system for treating ADHD symptoms and other types of learning challenges isn't only drug free-- but brings new meaning to the term 'timing is everything.'

It's not the latest video game to hit big. This is 25 year old Malachi Wristen participating in a classic session with the Interactive Metronome treatment.

By Daisy Lin and Bruce Hensel |  Thursday, Aug 23, 2012  

A Camarillo-based organization is using Interactive Metronome to help improve brain timing.

Children as young as 4 years old are being allowed to take drugs for ADHD and other behavioral problems. But some parents, like the Solomons, were desperate to find a drug-free alternative for their son, Adam. They turned to a new drug-free way to treat ADHD that uses a game-like therapy called Interactive Metronome. Dr. Bruce Hensel reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Aug. 23, 2012.

Self awareness impacts so much of our daily life. Awareness of where we are in space has a huge impact on safety. Awareness of other people around us impacts development of our social skills. Awareness of how we maintain our body impacts development of self care skills. 

Families across the US are fighting ADHD and Autism with a personalized brain fitness program. The computer based program is called 'Interactive Metronome' and its video game like technology has helped one student go from special needs to top of his class.

Just a few years ago, Adam Solomon was struggling with a severe case of ADHD. Labeled a special needs student at school, he was often relegated to the corner of the classroom to be on his own.

His parents were met with a decision: provide medicinal treatment for their son or leave him in the state that he was in. Unhappy with the choices available to them, his parents opted for an alternative measure recommended by a friend...

A Brain-based Approach for ADHD and LD

Donna Abler, a holistic occupational therapist, is accepting summer registrations to help children overcome motor, behavioral and cognitive challenges associated with attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities (LD) through a natural, drug-free approach. Developed in the early 1990s, Interactive Metronome (IM) is a computerized, brain-based therapy tool that has gained national attention as a breakthrough intervention to support processing abilities in the brain, including language, motor and cognition skills. Its effectiveness is backed by clinical research...

IM Helps Family with ADHD Therapy

Renee Williams and her 5-year-old son Cameron submitted the winning name for our mascot: IM Buddy!
Cameron and his mother Renee have never gone through the Interactive Metronome program and they are really exited to start their IM-Home sessions with one of our IM-Home providers. Renee, stumbled upon our IM-Home website and after reading and seeing that IM-Home would be very beneficial to her son, she took a chance to register for our contest at our Facebook page “Hope for ADHD.”...

IM Provider April Christopherson OTR/L guest stars in the “Focus Point” Voice America National Radio program.

She discuses “The Shandy Clinic” in Colorado Springs, CO, Interactive Metronome, other programs that she has worked with, and the use of modalities to treat pediatrics (SPD, ADHD, Autism), TBI, and Stroke Rehab. The show also discusses the importance of rhythm and timing in the brain, and how it affects our everyday lives. You can listen to the interview at this link: VoiceAmerica
 

Children with ADHD are frequently impulsive. Fortunately, researchers are trying to get to the bottom of this to determine the reason(s) why and what can be done about it. Authors of an editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry (2006) remarked that watching the brain in action under MRI is helping researchers and doctors better understand the underpinnings of ADHD, or in other words, what is going on in the brain? Interestingly, the areas of the brain implicated in ADHD that are frequently targeted for study are ALSO part of the brain’s internal timing network. Timing in the brain is known to be disrupted in individuals with ADHD & has also been implicated in the ability to control one’s impulses and behavior. Interactive Metronome can be an important part of the treatment program for a person with ADHD by improving timing in the brain and addressing some of the areas of brain function mentioned in this article (i.e., working memory, ability to tune out distractions and pay attention to what is most important).

Casey, B.J. and Durston, S. (2006). From Behavior to Cognition to the Brain and Back: What Have We Learned from Functional Imaging Studies of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? American Journal of Psychiatry, 163, 6.

“The simple fact that I can stick with a task until it is complete is a major break through for me!”

Mariko, Yamamoto is a college age student and has come a long way after going through the Interactive Metronome^® program at IMprove in Okinawa, Japan. Mariko ’s inability to concentrate, her short attention span, and hyperactive behavior were taking a toll on her academic and daily life. One of Mariko ’s biggest problems was her inability to organize her tasks, like cleaning her room. She would never know where to begin cleaning and after hours of shuffling things around she would have to resort to calling her mother to help her get things put away correctly. She also found herself struggling with note taking during her classes and found activities, such as eating meals and washing dishes boring. She would often loose track of her original task and lose valuable study time.

These safety rules for ADHD children may seem obvious, but we find that reminders seldom hurt -- especially for caregivers who don't live every day with attention deficit and hyperactivity.

A parent or older sibling must always supervise free play.

Stop his jumping or running sooner than you might with another child.

When outside, hold hands.

When out for a stroll, walk on the side that's closer to the street.

Be ready to stop a child with your actions, not words, should he happen to dart off.

Hold hands in stores or malls, or place the child in a wagon or cart with a seat belt.

Article Published on Additude magazine.

Link between ADHD and body clock established



A link has now been established between ADHD & timing. Genes that control circadian rhythm do not function properly in ADHD adults, which also may explain why these individual have poor sleep patterns and suffer from depression. Theoretically if they are put back “on time” symptoms would improve. IM (Link to IM-Home) is the only measurable therapeutic device that works on timing in the brain.

To read the full article visit- http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/1206/1224308615407.html



For more insight on timing visit The Time Doc’s Brain Clock Blog.

Gift Ideas to enhance an IM program

Are you looking for a gift for your child who is participating in IM sessions?  Parents at our clinic ask me all the time what would be a good gift for their child. Something to enhance their therapy yet is fun. Below I’ve listed some games which can be found at the Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon or Toys R Us, so they are easy to find.

Men more prone to ADHD than Women? Think again!

While more boys than girls are treated for ADHD, a new report shows that among adults the numbers have flipped, this suggests that a great number of girls are growing up untreated and only during adulthood they finally get treated. According to Dr. L. Adler, director of the Psychiatry and Neurology adult ADHD program at New York University School of Medicine, boys tend to exhibit the “H” for hyperactivity in ADHD more often than girls, so they get diagnosed earlier. Girls on the other hand grow up exhibiting laziness or lack of motivation in school, but by adulthood the attention deficit component of ADHD becomes more prominent and they tend to struggle with jobs, paying bills, and managing daily tasks.

Check out this artcle published in "The Dispatch" on September 17, 2011

Written by: Jan Swoope- jswoope@cdispatch.com

The eyes have it: Some find life-altering results in vision therapy

On Wednesday, 10-year-old Matt Morel of Caledonia came home from school with a social studies assignment and 10 or so questions to answer about Christopher Columbus. The everyday task might seem ho-hum in most households, but that the fifth-grader could tackle it on his own is cause for joy as far as his parents, Melanie and Keith, are concerned. A year ago, he couldn't have.

"Before Matt had vision therapy, there was no way he could read that and do it," declared his dedicated mom, who used to spend hour after frustrating hour trying to help her son slog through homework. "Even if he had an open book for an exercise in class, it was useless."

The routine school assignment illustrates as well as anything the life-changing triumphs the Morel family has witnessed since the fall of 2010.

At age 14, Kayla Williamson of Starkville had been on ADD medications since second grade and, in spite of varied curriculums, testing, specialists and speech therapy, struggled with learning.

Many parents who hear the diagnosis ADD or ADHD are sent into a tailspin of information overload and “friendly” advice from a variety of sources. As a pediatric Occupational Therapist, I am often faced with the task of helping parents and caregivers interpret what the information they have been given means for their child. Here are a few common questions I get during evaluations: “Will medication really help my child?”; “Why aren’t the medications helping my child sleep at night?”; “When can we expect to wean our child off medication now that he’s started therapy?” and, “Will a special diet be a substitute for medication?”