The media article by NPR focuses on alternative treatment for children with ADD/ADHD. Robert Melillo, the creator of Brain Balance the provider of this alternative treatment, is considered an expert in the field of functional neurological chiropractic medicine.
Claims that procedure focused on neuroscience focusing on brain activity right hemisphere increase the characteristics associated with ADD/ADHD. Pediatricians along with neuroscientists disagree with Melillo due to the research he has done not being peer-reviewed and did not have a control group to be of the variable to compare his treatment.
URL Link- https://goo.gl/zVBdRX
This peer review article focuses on a 12-week intervention program involving students diagnosed with mental disorders such as academic underachievement, hyperactivity, impulse activity and behavior issues. The goal was to achieve psychological bal-ance and cognitive temporal ability above the child’s age and grade level requirement. Treatment intervention included stimulating the left and right hemispheres of the brain that was less active in children with mental disorders, while the control group did not receive this treatment. Over the 12-week period, researchers concluded that the study group that received treatment increased their test scores from week one of the study at its completion above their respective grade levels requirements.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2164767-brain-balance-adhd-paper-2013-1.html
I have mixed feelings about the NPR article. I do believe that Robert Melillo is no doubt trying to market his product which he is selling to parents six months of treatment at the cost of $12,000 per child. I think the article did not do a good job focusing on whether or not the owner of Brain Balance was a pure for-profit capitalist or someone who was trying to change the perspective of experts in the neurological field as to how we treat and evaluate children with ADD/ADHD. As the article completed one of the children who received treatment from Brain Balance left the program and then went on to take pharmaceutical drugs which helped him become more attentive in social situations and academically which pleased his parents overall. At the end of this article, I felt there was a lack of responsibility on the part of the writer to focus on the does question does lower brain activity in the right and left hemisphere lead to the children having mental disorders such as ADD/ADHD? The article seemed like an underhanded advertisement for pharmaceutical drugs as the go-to treatment for with mental disorders. In contrast, the peer review article focused on increasing brain activity in children with mental disorders in their right and left hemispheres of the brain. At the end of this 12-week study students, test scores increased above their grade level. The peer review articles evidence shows that there may be validity to the claims of Dr.Melillo and maybe there needs to be more research into neurological activity and its connection to ADD/ADHD.
