According to the Study led by Dr L. Shalev, a pioneering intervention program was tested in order to directly improve the various attentional functions of children with ADHD.

The computerized progressive attentional training (CPAT) program trained four areas of attention: activate sustained attention, selective attention, orienting of attention, and executive attention. The ADHD kids, aged six to thirteen, were trained twice a week over an 8-week period. The control group did not do specific brain training, but regular computer games. The group of children that had the ADHD brain training, showed a significant improvement in reading comprehension, passage copying and reduction of parents’ reports of inattentiveness.

The research was done in Academic standards in Universities in the UK an Israel.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a779510115

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• ADHD GUIDE

If you don’t use your cognitive thought, you lose it with age. Your brain requires cognitive brain training to retain memory. Accumulating evidence even indicates that proper mentally stimulating activities reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. And assists those suffering with ADHD to retain memory.

Initial decline generally begins in the cognitive areas of memory and divided attention, specifically the speed at which it takes us to process and react to information.

Until recently, cognitive training was practiced exclusively for people suffering from severe mental damage or cognitive skill deficiencies. We now know that each individual can benefit from cognitive training, especially those living with ADHD.

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• Long-term Effects of Cognitive Training on Everyday Functional Outcomes in Older Adults

ADHDtherapy360’s training programs are developed using the latest cognitive science research in order to create training systems designed to enhance one single process at a time, such as different sub categories of working memory, attention and so forth.

Moreover, just as conventional physical and mental training regimens tend to be tedious and mind-numbing, the entire ADHDtherapy360 site was designed as a fun and educational approve to overcoming challenges of ADHD.

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• ADHD

Following are research results compiled by the ACTIVE Study Group:

Objective
To evaluate whether 3 cognitive training interventions improve mental abilities and daily functioning in older, independent-living adults.

Design
Randomized, controlled, single-blind trial with recruitment conducted from March 1998 to October 1999 and 2-year follow-up through December 2001.

Participants
Volunteer sample of 2832 persons aged 65 to 94 years recruited from senior housing, community centers, and hospital/clinics in 6 metropolitan areas in the United States.

Training Type
Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups: 10-session group training for memory (verbal episodic memory), or reasoning (ability to solve problems that follow a serial pattern), or speed of processing (visual search and identification); or a control group.

Results
Each type of training improved the targeted cognitive ability compared with baseline.

Moreover, the improvement was durable to 2 years. More than 70% of the participants of the speed of processing group and of the reasoning group and about 25% of the memory group demonstrated reliable cognitive improvement immediately after the intervention period.

Further training sessions, given 11 months later, enhanced training gains in speed and reasoning interventions, which were maintained at 2-year follow-up.

Conclusions
Results support the effectiveness and durability of the cognitive training interventions in improving targeted cognitive abilities. Training effects were of a magnitude equivalent to the amount of decline expected in elderly persons without dementia over 7- to 14-year intervals.

Link to study: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/288/18/2271

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• ADHD GUIDE

Following are research results compiled by the ACTIVE Study Group:

Context
Previously reported data from the ACTIVE study showed that each of 3 cognitive interventions improved the cognitive ability it targeted and these improvements were maintained through the 2 years of follow-up.

However, the effects of cognitive training on everyday function have not been demonstrated yet.

Objective
To determine the effects of cognitive training on daily function and durability of training on cognitive abilities.

Design, Setting and Participants
Five-year follow-up of a randomized controlled single-blind trial with 4 treatment groups. A volunteer sample of 2832 persons (mean age, 73.6 years; 26% black), living independently in 6 US cities, was recruited from senior housing, community centers, and hospitals and clinics. The study was conducted between April 1998 and December 2004. Five-year follow-up was completed in 67% of the sample.

Interventions
Ten-session training for memory (verbal episodic memory), reasoning (inductive reasoning), or speed of processing (visual search and identification); 4-session booster training at 11 and 35 months after training in a random sample of those who completed training.

Results
The reasoning group reported significantly less difficulty in the instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) than the control group. Neither speed of processing training nor memory training had a significant effect on IADL. The booster training for the speed of processing group, but not for the other 2 groups, showed a significant effect on the performance-based functional measure of everyday speed of processing.

No booster effects were seen for any of the groups for everyday problem-solving or self-reported difficulty in IADL. Each intervention maintained effects on its specific targeted cognitive ability through 5 years (memory; reasoning; speed of processing). Booster training produced additional improvement with the reasoning intervention for reasoning performance and the speed of processing intervention for speed of processing performance

Conclusions
Compared with the control group, cognitive training resulted in improved cognitive abilities specific to the abilities trained that continued 5 years after the initiation of the intervention.

Link to study: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296/23/2805

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• How to Train Your Brain

Cognitive training, or “brain” training, is similar to physical fitness training and physiotherapy. For instance, just as sports teams provide their athletes with gyms for training and physiotherapy on a regular basis, routine cognitive training is also a fundamental necessity especially for those living with ADHD.

Just like taking a test in school, the key to effective brain training also demands zeroing in on one particular cognitive area at a time, and within controlled time frames.

Take a basketball player for example. Far from limiting his or her training to playing a series of games, their workout routine includes a variety of physical fitness exercises, perhaps physiotherapy, as well as different drills like running, dribbling the ball, passing, shooting at the basket and so forth.

The rationale behind cognitive training is similar to other forms of training, like sports, and due to the architecture of the brain. When our cognitive system becomes acquainted with simple tasks, it constructs “expert routines.” As such, we often develop enough expertise to carry out certain tasks automatically.

Much the way our bodies are composed of muscles, bones and joints etc., our cognitive systems also comprise a complex series of various processes and sub processes, such as memory (short term, long term), attention, perception and so on.

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