Joey’s Story
Posted on 9/4/2003
Video games are an all-too-common part of many children’s lives today. We often hear about the graphic and sometimes violent content of such video games, and wonder about the values they instill in today’s youth.
At St. Alexius Medical Center in Bismarck, ND, a video game is helping patients every day. It’s a video game unlike most you’ve seen. This game has no control buttons to push. Instead, it is controlled by brain activity.
For months, eleven-year-old Joey Schaefer has been coming to “play” video games at the St. Alexius Center for Integrated Medicine. He sits in a recliner with sensors attached to each ear and the right side of his head.
The game exercises Joey’s brain waves to work them at a more efficient frequency. Gerry Meier, a neurofeedback specialist at the center, explains how it works. “It’s like being in bumper-to-bumper traffic, going 25 miles per hour, when suddenly your cruise control goes off.”
“That’s what happens with children. The slower brain wave interferes with the more efficient ones. Depending on whether the cruise control is dropping or increasing, you adjust to the proper speed.”
Before Joey started bio/neurofeedback treatments, he would break out in impulsive activity, becomming hyperactive and unable to focus. He also suffered from mood swings. His mom says Joey has improved in leaps and bounds.
“He couldn’t do one task for more than five minutes,” Wendy Schaefer said. “He’s come a long way.” The bio/neurofeedback technique is improving his bouts with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette’s Syndrome, depression, and bed wetting, as well. “It helps me be calm,” said Joey.
Joey’s parents have tried everything to help him. “We tried occupational therapy and anger management courses. We also bought expensive, ‘special’ magnets to put on his back to help with his Tourette’s. The magnets helped, but it wasn’t enough,”said Wendy Schaefer.
Joey also was taking six pills a day. Meier started seeing Joey once a week for two 45-minute sessions. Within a month his parents took him off all medication, except for antidepressants, which he is being weaned from. His mood swings decreased and he became happier.
Wendy Schaefer believes in this type of “video game.” “When you are a parent, you want them to feel how it feels to not take medications and everything else. When you are giving them all of that medicine you wonder what the long-term side effects are going to be.
“He’s come a long way,” Wendy Schaefer said. “He was still impulsive when he was on medication. Now, that’s pretty much gone. He wasn’t able to focus and wouldn’t spend the night at someone’s house. Now he’s more socially accepted.”
Bio/neurofeedback has been a godsend for the Schaefer family, especially Joey. It’s one “video game” that may help many families in the future.