Neurofeedback is one of the safe, alternative therapies the BART Foundation believes may help brain injury survivors. The BART Foundation aims to promote better outcomes for TBI/ABI survivors by answering three questions: Which alternative therapies are likely to work, where can they be found, and how can they be afforded? We fulfill our mission by carefully monitoring global research and clinical trial outcomes and sharing that information in user-friendly language with the TBI/ABI community.
We wanted to share a recent article published in 2023 in Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair that discussed research in neurofeedback.
We provide a brief overview and encourage everyone to review the original and consider sharing it with your medical team.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37125901/
Effects of Neurofeedback on Cognitive Function, Productive Activity, and Quality of Life in Patients With Traumatic Brain Injury: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Cognitive impairment is the most common and debilitating residual symptom of traumatic brain injury (TBI), regardless of severity. It substantially affects an individual’s ability to return to productive activity, decreases their quality of life, and has a high socioeconomic and health-care burden. Deficits in memory, attention, and information processing speed and the impairment of basic cognitive functions may implicate higher-level cognitive functions (e.g., executive function). Strategies that target the preservation of basic cognitive functions are key to preventing or delaying posttraumatic cognitive impairment.
In the past, studies that have examined the effectiveness of neurofeedback (NFB) on cognitive function following TBI have had poor study designs and small sample sizes. This study aimed to learn from past errors and provide useful and meaningful research outcomes.
Conducted by a research team affiliated with the School of Nursing, Taipei Medical University in Taiwan, the randomized controlled trial assessed the effects of low-resolution tomography Z-score NFB (LZNFB) and theta/beta NFB on cognitive impairment, return to productive activity, and quality of life in patients with TBI.
Researchers randomly assigned 87 patients with TBI with cognitive impairment to LZNFB, theta/beta NFB, or usual care (UC) groups. Patients in both NFB groups received weekly 60-minute treatment for 10 weeks, and those in the control group received UC and telephone interviews for 10 weeks. The primary outcome was cognitive function as measured by performance on cognitive tasks; the secondary outcomes included productive activity and quality of life based on the Community Integration Questionnaire-revised (CIQ-R) and the Quality of Life after Brain Injury (QOLIBRI), respectively, at baseline and immediately after the last intervention.
The results demonstrated that the LZNFB group exhibited significantly greater improvements in immediate recall, delayed recall, recognition memory, and selective attention compared with the UC group; the theta/beta NFB group exhibited improvements in only immediate memory and selective attention (P < .05). The total CIQ-R scores of the LZNFB group after treatment were significantly improved than those of the UC group were.
The final conclusion asserted that consecutive LZNFB achieved therapeutic effects in memory, attention, and productive activity, whereas theta/beta NFB improved memory and attention in patients with TBI.
Reference:
Chen P-Y, Su I-C, Shih C-Y, et al. Effects of Neurofeedback on Cognitive Function, Productive Activity, and Quality of Life in Patients With Traumatic Brain Injury: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair. 2023;37(5):277-287. doi:10.1177/15459683231170539
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