Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Treatment and medication
Magnetic stimulation of the brain has been tried for ADHD and has not yet shown anything. The studies are small, often single cases, and not built in a way that could give a trustworthy answer.
Small uncontrolled studies are generous places. Hope, attention and the freedom to report only the good parts all push results upwards. That does not prove the technique is useless, and it is only fair to say so. It does mean there is nothing here to recommend yet, and a clinic charging for it is charging for a maybe.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
Qur’an and Sunnah
If you do not know, ask people who know (Quran 21:7). Not knowing yet is a respectable answer, and better than a confident one nobody has earned.
وَمَآ أَرۡسَلۡنَا قَبۡلَكَ إِلَّا رِجَالࣰ ا نُّوحِيٓ إِلَيۡهِمۡۖ فَسۡـَٔلُوٓاْ أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّكۡرِ إِن كُنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ
And even before your time [Prophet], all the messengers We sent were only men We inspired–– if you [disbelievers] do not know, ask people who know the Scripture––
Qur’an 21:7read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A review of the level of evidence for EEG neurofeedback across mental and brain disorders concluded that its clinical use needs a better demonstration of therapeutic effect than it has. That is a neighbouring technique rather than magnetic stimulation, and the judgement is the useful part: what stands between an interesting brain based method and a recommendable one is the quality of the demonstration. On that standard this one is nowhere close.
Micoulaud-Franchi JA, McGonigal A, Lopez R, Daudet C, Kotwas I, Bartolomei F. (2015). Electroencephalographic neurofeedback: Level of evidence in mental and brain disorders and suggestions for good clinical practice.. Neurophysiologie clinique = Clinical neurophysiology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
When a study cannot rule out hope and selective reporting, a positive result does not tell you much.
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
The warning about group social skills work is about loud, disruptive children. A quiet, anxious child who simply has not had much practice with other children is a different case, and a gentle group may be exactly right.
People who are sleeping properly, eating properly and moving a bit tend to want each other more. The unglamorous parts of life management run closer to the bedroom than either of you might expect.
Two things happening together is not one causing the other. Learn that once and you have a reply to most of the claims you will meet.