“It is through the amazing generosity and support of people all around the world that allows us the opportunity to help children with their journey back to optimal health. I am extremely hopeful that our expanded campaign efforts to businesses in your community this upcoming year will not only increase the awareness of our mission, but allow us to provide more children with the chiropractic care they so desperately need,” says Dr. James O’Dwyer, Director of “Oklahaven” Children’s Chiropractic Center.

Pediatric Chiropractic has proved to be effective in improving the health of children through treatment that is natural and medication-free.  Oklahaven’s specializes in treating neurologically disorganized children, including failure to thrive, cerebral palsy, developmental delays, ADHD, and the autism spectrum.

To learn more about “Oklahaven“, sign up for the 2010 Have-A-Heart campaign, or to make a donation please visit www.chiropractic4kids.com.

Technorati Tags: ADHD, autism, cerebral palsy, chiropractic, developmental delays, failure to thrive, pediatric chiropractic

Because a chiropractic approach to ADHD is natural and drug-free, a large number of parents choose chiropractic care over the conventional medical practice of giving children Class 2 psychotropic drugs that have intense side effects including personality changes and permanent alterations in the brain. The vast majority of parents who’ve opted for chiropractic treatment for their children have noted marvelous behavioral changes as a result.

Due to the differences between the manner in which boys and girls use the two hemispheres of their brain, ADHD seems to occur in more boys than girls and, additionally, for the same reason is often more  easily observable in the behavior of boys than of girls. Some of the symptoms that are most prominent include difficulty concentrating and sitting still, lack of ability to control impulsive thoughts and behaviors, easily distracted by noises and activities, constant movement of fingers, hands, arms, feet, or legs.

Quite a few children who manifest ADHD symptoms are hypersensitive to certain foods, such as dairy or gluten products, and sugars and artificial sweeteners. Furthermore, they generally have a hypersensitive reaction to additives in foods, herbicides and pesticides used to grow non-organic fruits and vegetables, and laundry products such as detergents, fabric softeners, and other chemicals. Often, the removal of these environmental agencies can go a long way in reducing ADHD symptoms.

Checking for spinal anomalies and certain responses to specific neurological tests are part of the thorough examination offered by your chiropractor.

You may be able to assist your child in getting his or her life back in balance through natural, safe chiropractic care. Before taking drastic pharmaceutical measures, if your child displays the symptoms of ADHD, call your chiropractor to make an appointment for a complete evaluation. Call today for the health of your child!

Technorati Tags: ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, chiropractic, chiropractor, drug-free, natural

learning While Fidgeting: ADHD

Do you remember being a school child and having some difficulty sitting still after a certain amount of time? I certainly do. In fact, I remember the oncer per week assembly when I was in elementary school. It was required that we all sit up, feet flat on the floor and elbows off of the elbow rest. I never could understand the wisdom behind not being allowed to use the elbow rests to rest our elbows. But, the rule was strictly enforced. I had great difficulty with this because I wanted to fidget and so did all of my classmates. Worse than that, we had to pay attention. There were times when we were told things that we were required to repeat to our parents that evening. As much as I struggled to pay attention and remember, the message went by me with the speed of light. I often asked and even begged my classmates, after assembly, what the message was. Depending on whether they were in a mood to torture me or not, my friends just might repeat the message to me. You see, it is not that I forgot the message. Rather, I never heard the message. But, the worst part of the whole thing was being told to “sit still.” Try as I might, I just could not. I had to fidget!

Even now, my wife will ask me, “why are you jiggling?” And my answer is always: “Uh, I don’t know.”

I am now 66 years of age. When I was a child in elementary school, no one ever heard of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). To be specific, I had the ADD part of the problem with very little hyperacitivity (except for the jiggle), but just enough to get me in trouble by talking a little too much and feeling the need to put my elbows on the elbow rest. There were many instructions that I simply never heard and, therefore, got things wrong. It got to the point where I suspected that I might just be dumb. I was not dumb, but I had and still have ADD. At some point in my school life I learned to compenstate for my problems without realizing that this was what I was doing. In other words, with no diagnosis but a suspicion about myself that something was wrong, I taught myself ways to get and retain the informaton that I needed. That is how I got through graduate school with two Master’s degrees and a PhD.
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A recent, small but significant study revealed the possibility that allowing ADHD kids to squirm is better for them than demanding that they sit still. Counter to the old school maxim, “sit still and pay attention,” the study indicates that letting them squirm helps them pay attention. Mark Rapport, University of Central Florida School Psychology Professor, conducted a small study using 23 boys ages 8 to 12 and took 4 years to meticulously study them. His study yielded some interesting data.

First, children with ADD cannot follow complicated instructions. If you tell them to open their book to page twelve, do problems 4,5,9 and and do not do the rest of them, the ADD children will forget everything after open the book to page twelve. Assignments must be given in segments so that their working memory is not over taxed. In addition, allowing the fidgeting may actually help these kids focus their attention instead of demanding that they sit still.

Ahhh, I really believe that if I had been allowed to jiggle away in elementary school I might have done a lot better by being better able to hear things.

Another recent study cited the fact that all elementary and middle school children perform better if they have had time during the day to get plenty of exercise.

Children with either ADD or ADHD are not stupid, lazy or unmotivated. They do not store memory in the same way others do and they need to be taught ways to help them remember what they must do. Teachers and parents have to help these kids learn how to compensate for these problems and keep in mind that these children are really not hearing or remembering compex instructions.

At the same time, all children need plenty of time to exercise and not just after school.

It seems that wiggling and exercising helps all of us improve our attention.

Article written by Allan N. Schwartz, LCSW, PhD on Sun, Apr 26th 2009

Technorati Tags: Add, ADHD, chiropractor

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ScienceDaily (2009-03-27) — Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder show more variable or inconsistent responses during on “working” or short-term, memory tasks when compared with typically developing peers, a new study has found.

“We think poor working memory is a characteristic present in many children and adults with ADHD,” said Schweitzer, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. The current study, published online in February in the journal Child Neuropsychology, supports the idea that what underlies impaired working memory is a problem in how consistently a child with ADHD can respond during a working memory task. The current study took a closer look at their performance using a relatively newer statistical analytical approach, to determine whether the children with ADHD were indeed faster, slower, or if perhaps another, more complicated process was occurring. The hypothesis was that children with ADHD were actually mostly responding at the same rate as healthy children, but with more frequent very slow responses than the control subjects. Buzy said that the children with ADHD had more frequent longer response times when compared with their typically developing peers, but the responses they did give were just as accurate. Previous studies compared only the range of reaction times and average reaction times for children with ADHD and controls. The researchers also showed that working memory variability correlated with ADHD symptoms as scored by parent surveys (using the Conners’ ADHD rating scale) prior to testing. The current results led another Schweitzer laboratory member, postdoctoral fellow Catherine Fassbender, to design a study looking at variability in response time during a working memory task in the brains of children with ADHD using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Technorati Tags: ADHD, memory, reaearch