submitted by Maria Di Donato DEd, BCN, PA Licensed Psychologist, PA/NJ Certified School Psychologist
Mild Cognitive Impairment, a condition primarily affecting seniors, is getting a lot of new attention in recent years. Often referred to as MCI, it is known to cause a decline in memory, and executive function.
With 20% of the population in the senior category there is increasing interest in slowing the trajectory of this impairment. MCI affects attention and immediate and delayed verbal memory. But it can also involve other cognitive skills such as dual tasking, switching tasks and reasoning ability.
Overall, the aging process is associated with a decline in gray matter and connectivity between brain areas. As such, the related cognitive skills are also negatively impacted in the parts of the brain that are responsible for these functions.
Emotional processing difficulties including depression and anxiety may also be experienced. Medical interventions have not proven to be effective in preventing or successfully treating MCI.
However, on an international scale, a lot of recent research in neurofeedback has escalated and is providing promising results for slowing and even reversing cognitive decline with neurofeedback.
Research for treating dementia, using neurofeedback is another area of interest.
Neurofeedback, a form of brainwave biofeedback, is a non-invasive non-medication intervention that is used to treat many brain-related issues by a system involving operant conditioning.
It is a learning process that uses a system of rewards to reinforce the desirable brainwaves. This process allows the brain to learn the new brainwave frequencies and over time to produce them independently. The result is improvement in the associated cognitive skills being trained.
Neurofeedback was developed in the early 1970s originally for stopping seizures. Over time, it escalated into treating ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, head injuries and stroke.
Neurofeedback has gained recognition as a safe intervention for many neurocognitive issues which now includes mild cognitive impairment for seniors.