Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
Before committing to a course that runs into thousands, set the same money next to the other things it could buy. Tutoring, a proper assessment, a medication review and a well tested psychosocial programme all sit in the same envelope.
Neurofeedback courses often run for a month or more, insurers rarely pay, and the training of whoever delivers it varies a great deal. The cost is not only financial. A family who spends everything on one attempt often has nothing left, in money or in patience, when something better is offered later.
Qur’an and Sunnah
do not be wasteful: God does not like wasteful people (Quran 6:141). Spending carefully here is not meanness, it is keeping something back for what will actually help.
۞وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أَنشَأَ جَنَّٰتࣲ مَّعۡرُوشَٰتࣲ وَغَيۡرَ مَعۡرُوشَٰتࣲ وَٱلنَّخۡلَ وَٱلزَّرۡعَ مُخۡتَلِفًا أُكُلُهُۥ وَٱلزَّيۡتُونَ وَٱلرُّمَّانَ مُتَشَٰبِهࣰ ا وَغَيۡرَ مُتَشَٰبِهࣲۚ كُلُواْ مِن ثَمَرِهِۦٓ إِذَآ أَثۡمَرَ وَءَاتُواْ حَقَّهُۥ يَوۡمَ حَصَادِهِۦۖ وَلَا تُسۡرِفُوٓاْۚ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُسۡرِفِينَ
It is He who produces both trellised and untrellised gardens, date palms, crops of diverse flavours, the olive, the pomegranate, alike yet different. So when they bear fruit, eat some of it, paying what is due on the day of harvest, but do not be wasteful: God does not like wasteful people
Qur’an 6:141read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A network meta-analysis put drug treatments, psychological treatments and complementary approaches for ADHD into a single comparison, and stimulants came out ahead of the dietary and alternative options on symptom outcomes. That does not decide what any one family should do, and it does show which options have carried their weight when they were tested.
Catalá-López F, Hutton B, Núñez-Beltrán A, Page MJ, Ridao M, Macías Saint-Gerons D, Catalá MA, Tabarés-Seisdedos R, Moher D. (2017). The pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents: A systematic review with network meta-analyses of randomised trials.. PloS one doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Every pound has one use, so choosing an unproven treatment quietly cancels a proven one.
When not to
This is about weighing options with a family rather than refusing them one, since a person who feels overruled usually stops telling you what they are trying.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
When omega levels are low, everything about ADHD tends to get louder: attention, mood swings, holding things in mind. Low omega does not cause ADHD, but it can be sitting on top of it.
People with ADHD tend to have lower omega-3 in their blood, and bringing low levels up has been linked with some improvement in symptoms. No convincing difference has shown up between DHA and EPA for this.
Sensory integration training is popular and it does not help ADHD. Whatever value it has elsewhere, the capacity it works on is not the one that is impaired here.