Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a widespread mental disorder that affects people around the world. In order to treat ADHD, doctors most commonly prescribe medication; however, the use of medicine has been widely critiqued for its expensive price, adverse health effects, and only short-term improvement. Mitigating the drawbacks of medication, neurofeedback therapy (NFT) provides a promising new treatment for ADHD that involves the cheaper, noninvasive use of computer programming, where patients perform brain exercises to improve concentration and consciously control brainwaves. However, given the novelty of NFT, there is a significant lack of research on its efficacy in different populations. Specifically, it is unknown how effective NFT is in treating children and adults, which is important, considering that the severity of ADHD symptoms manifests differently in children and adults. Thus, this research aims to determine the compared efficacy of NFT in adult and child ADHD patients. A cross-sectional, retrospective study, relying on patient records from adults and children, analyzed whether there was a correlation between increased NFT sessions and reduced ADHD symptoms, evaluating the relative effectiveness of NFT between children and adults. Based on scores from comparable, standardized diagnostic measures of ADHD (the Tests of Variable Attention for children and Integrated Visual and Auditory Continuous Performance Test for adults), a paired t-test statistical method calculated the trend of improvement to determine which group most benefited from the therapy. This information is will ultimately help ensure that the right age group will receive the most beneficial treatment.
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