For medical management of ADD, our psychiatrist, Dr. Kevin Breen can provide expert diagnosis and psychiatric management of ADD symptoms, and other related psychiatric disorders that can complicate the treatment of ADD, including mood disorders, OCD and other anxiety disorders.  Dr. Breen can also give expert medical advice on the use of nutritional supplementation that can aid in the managment of ADD.

 

Dr. Richardson offers a wide range of non-medication treatment for ADD.  Play Attention combines proven teaching methods and cutting-edge technology to help students improve attention skills, improve time-on-task, and reduce behavior problems.  Play Attention measures brain waves and presents feedback in a video game format.  It improves attention skills with techniques like those developed by NASA and the Air Force for their astronauts and pilots, where even briefest lapses of attention can be fatal.  Play Attention has been demonstrated numerous times on television, including Good Morning America.  This prestigious and powerful learning tool uses a sensor-loaded helmet which enables the wearer to control attention exercises with the mind alone.  Within sixty seconds you can make animated characters swim, fly, or race across the screen by simply focusing on them.  That sixty seconds will be the first time you or your child will witness your attention as it happens.  If you lose focus, you lose control of the screen character.  This is known as feedback.  With coaching by Dr. Richardson, the student or adult learns to maintain focused awareness, and what behaviors can detract from mental concentration.  Gradually, the student or adult learn to transition their attention skills to educational objectives, like reading, math, or listening.  Play Attention technology has been researched with people from age 7 to 45 years, but experience has shown it to be effective with younger and older people as well.  Results can be seen in as little as 15 hours, but it takes an average of 40 to 60 hours of training before the positive results become permanent.

 

In addition to Play Attention, Advanced Psych Care also offers other proven computerized attention training, the Captain's Log software by Brain Train in Richmond, Virginia. Captain's Log contains an enormous number of individual computer games that train 20 different neuropsychological skills that are involved with attention. The Captain's Log program is individually designed by Dr. Richardson to take into account your child's specific cognitive strengths and weaknesses. Captain's Log can be done in the office with Dr. Richardson, or the program can be leased for 1 year for regular training at home.  It is recommended that the Captain's Log be performed at home in conjuntion with the Play Attention training in the office, or can be done on its own.

 

With Play Attention and Captain's Log, we are exercising the student's brain to perform better on attention tasks.  These brain-based exercises are aimed at improving blood flow (angiogenesis) to the attention centers in the brain (the frontal lobes) and increasing the neural density (neurogenesis) in the frontal lobes.  In order to gain maximum benefits from this brain-training, we strongly recommend that the student's diet be optimized for brain development, which will include limiting sugars and simple carbohydrates, increasing consumption of protein, and nutritional supplementation with Pharmaceutical-Grade, Molecularly-Distilled Fish Oil, antioxidants, and other supplements depending upon the student's particular type of attention disorder. 

 

In order to ensure your child's success in school, we also have a broad and inclusive plan for parents to implement to help your child complete their homework, get organized at home, and develop their study skills  to improve their learning abilities and raise their grades.  Below you will find two extensive handouts for the ADD Homework Success Program that you can read and download.  If there are problems identified in how the family communicates and problem-solves around homework and other issues, family therapy can be arranged with Dr. Richardson as part of a comprehensive treatment strategy.

 

If your child is in public school and has been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, then Dr. Richardson can help you obtain special classroom accommodations for his or her learning problems, called a "504 Plan."  Below you will find a downloadable form which can be used to request specific classroom accommodations for your child.

 

 

Below you will find downloadable forms and informative parent education papers on a wide variety of issues relevant to the evaluation and treatment of ADD.  All patients who are going to be evaluated by Dr. Richardson should print out a copy of the Diagnostic Screening Survey and fill it out.  There are also parent handouts on helping your child be successful in school with a Homework Success Program and Advanced Learning Strategies.  If you are contemplating purchasing a lease of the computerized cognitive training software, Captain's Log, there is a Captain's Log Training Plan handout that should be filled out so that your child's individual Captain's Log training protocol can be designed with your child's individual cognitive strengths and weaknesses in mind.  You will also find handouts to help parents deal with vexing behavior problems at home.