The Use of Audio-Visual Entrainment for the Treatment of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are attentional disorders which primarily involve slowed frontal brain activity and hypo-perfusion of cerebral blood flow in the frontal regions, particularly during reading.

Audio-visual entrainment (AVE) lends itself well for the treatment of ADD/ADHD. AVE exerts itself a major, widespread influence over the cortex in terms of dominant frequency and has been shown to produce dramatic increases in blood flow.

Individuals suffering from ADD/ADHD typically have an abundance of abnormally high alpha and/or theta waves with suppressed sensory-motor rhythm (SMR) waves. This manifests as inattention, impulsiveness, emotional instability and hyperactivity and interferes with the ability to perform cognitive tasks, such as reading.

AVE works because it boosts the SMR activity (thus reducing hyperactivity) and suppresses alpha and theta activity, thus improving attention, reasoning and emotional instability. QEEG anaylsis of before and after an AVE session have shown normalized EEG. One subgroup of ADD exhibits higher then average alpha, which is more prominent on the right side. This producing of alpha waves during reading is called inversion, and the individual experiences a mental "fog," making it difficult to absorb the reading material. Following just one session on a DAVID machine, alpha activity normalizes and reading speed and comprehension improve.

The studies regarding AVE as a treatment modality for ADD/ADHD have yielded excellent results. One study was done in 1993 by Carter and Russell on 26 boys aged eight to twelve years old. In this study, fourteen children (from a private school) received two minutes of 10 Hz stimulation, 1 minute of no stimulation, and 2 minutes of 18 Hz for 5 cycles over a 25-minute period. The students received AVE once a day, five days per week for eight weeks, totalling 40 sessions. They also listened to a tape of pulsed tones (recorded from the AVE sessions) for 40 sessions at home. The public school children (n=12) received three treatments per week for six weeks totalling 18 treatments. All children could see out of their eyesets, and were encouraged to play checkers and hand-held electronic games during the treatment.

The results of the first group were considerably better. They received 22 more AVE treatments than the public school children. Unfortunately this large difference in AVE treatment had confounded the study, making it unclear as to whether or not the beats on cassette tape had any influence. This group showed significant improvements in the "Raven IQ" test, memory, reading and spelling.

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