Office-Based Assessment of Memory Loss and Cognitive Impairment
over time. This training normalizes the
patient’s brainwaves via the combined
principle of behavioral conditioning and longterm potentiation of neurons, and conditions
patients’ behaviors (“training” their brains)
into normal, persistent patterns.
There is a clear need for objective memoryrelated measures that guide and inform
physicians in their provision of more targeted
medication and non-medication therapies
(i.e., supplements, nutrition, neurofeedback,
tDCS, rTMS). Ideally, a system that provides
doctors electrophysiology biomarkers also
offers a method by which non-invasive
therapy can be delivered. The efficacy of
neurofeedback treatment for memory
function improvement is gaining in
international literature. Early research
demonstrating that training peak alpha aids
cognitive functions in the elderly, and the
more recent advances in fMRI neurofeedback
have moved the once-research-field of
applied medical neuroscience to a
mainstream level of accepted medical
practice. Patients appreciate seeing the
objective evidence of their conditions, as well
as tracking their physiological change
longitudinally during different treatments.
Physicians should be able to work
directly with their patients in assessing and
treating mild cognitive impairment. By
putting easy-to-use neurofeedback
technology in the hands of general
practitioners, a current gap in brain
assessments and training solutions can be
closed. An office-based tool yielding
sensitive measures helps patients see the
value of treatment compliance, additional
biomarker information to support
differential diagnosis, and a more
individualized neurofeedback intervention
option. It is important to note that not all
biofeedback devices being sold are medical
grade and designed for physician
prescriptive use; and, just as important as
tools that are easy-to-use, are those that are
easy-to-access, affordable, and are
embraced by insurance companies.
years of expertise in the assessment and
training of elite peak performance,
concussion, brain injury, and optimized
healthy aging.
Evoke’s eVoxTM System is the only
medical-grade system that objectively
assesses cognitive impairment by
combining modalities into one portable
and easy-to-use clinical tool. eVox’s
multimodal approach to evaluations
integrates neuroscience technologies that
have been proven over many years,
including:
Electroencephalography (EEG)
Electrocardiography (ECG)
Event-Related Potential (ERP)
The large amounts of data are then
analyzed and turned into a meaningful report
of brain function that physicians use to chart a
course for treatment – which may include
“brain training,” also known as neurofeedback.
Traditional pharmacotherapies for
various neuropsychiatric disorders can
provide varied degrees of symptomatic
relief, but don’t typically treat the
underlying etiology. Neurotherapy
methods like neurofeedback are designed
to treat problems at specific brain
locations and neural networks. Careful
electrophysiology assessment and a
thoughtful functional treatment plan that
includes individualized neurotherapy offer
sound intervention alternatives to
medications alone. Patient’s brain patterns
(brainwaves) can be monitored and trained
using simple EEG technology and
proprietary neurofeedback programs.
It appears that effective treatments are
those that permit patients to learn and reexperience a renewed capacity to autoregulate their responses. During
neurofeedback sessions, a patient learns to
shift her or his mental state in order to
normalize brain rhythmicity, as displayed to
them by the EEG. Patients see their own brain
EEG rhythms, and learn to self-regulate them
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