EEG-Driven Stimulation (EDS)

Synopsis:
EEG-Driven stimulation is an EEG-driven photic stimulation system. This means that the patient's own brain electrical activity continuously and instantaneously sets and resets the frequency of strobing lights in front of the patient's eyes. It is non-invasive, non-pharmacological, and non-psychotherapeutic. It has reliably improved function for those who have plateaued in their recovery, especially from motor paralysis and central-nervous system cognitive and emotional impairment after mechanical and psychological trauma. After three years the treatment effects have persisted (unless the patients have become re-traumatized), with side effects similar to those from any change in situation. The treatment has evoked improvement in 97% of those to whom it was applied.

1. Hardware: The hardware consist of:
   • An single-channel EEG, with its signals sent to and analyzed by
   • A 486 DX2-66 MHZ computer with 8 MB RAM, a 350MB hard disk, back-up
   • An Iomega Zip Drive, a serial mouse, a 17" Monitor, and
   • A sound & light generation system with LED-embedded half-silvered glasses and headphones.
     
     
2. Software: Software links the EEG, computer, and sound & light generation subsystems, running the computer in protected mode and requiring 5.5 MB RAM. The software allows flexible adjustment of stimulation intensity, session duration, programming of offsets between EEG and stimulation frequencies, and the changing of settings automatically from one part of the session to the next.
   
   
3. Therapists qualifications: Therapists minimally need basic training in health care delivery and ethics, and a familiarity with rehabilitation and medication terminology and concepts; a nursing degree is believed to be the minimum level of training communications skills, the informed consent process, the framing of observations and providing context for describing to patients progress and problems in treatment, the recognition and management of psychological pathology, and interprofessional communications the operation of the EEG-driven stimulation hardware and software, including trouble- shooting, artifact recognition and management, the recognition and management of photosensitivity, hypersensitivity, ultrahypersensitivity, and the management of focal stimulation with minimal-intensity stimulation the operation of the hardware and software patient selection and rejection considerations

Data Analysis:
This summarizes the work of thirteen therapists using EEG-driven photic stimulation, in particular EEG-driven Stimulation, with approximately 110 patients, totaling approximately 1,600 treatments, and averaging sixteen treatments per patient. Each treatment beyond the initial brief test treatment lasted between 20 and 45 minutes.

Improvement:
The therapists reported, by patient self reports and therapist observation, improvement in 97% of the patients.

Distribution of numbers of treatment:
Numbers of treatments
1 - 9 10 - 19 20 - 29 30-49+
Number of pts: 7 5 6 3
Per cent of pts: 33 24 29 14

Number of patients with diagnoses and problems to which this treatment was applied (excluding the patients of L. Ochs from this sample): N=40 patients

Primary Diagnosis Secondary Diagnosis Problems
Physical problems (37) Physical Problems (8) Physical (7)
Cognitive functioning (8) Cognitive functioning (8) Cognitive (4)
Mood (8) Mood (7) Mood (2)
Anxiety(5) Anxiety (3) Behavioral (2)

Definitions of problems and diagnoses treated:
Physical problems Cognitive Mood Anxiety Behavioral
Head injury Thought Dsrdr Depression OCD Pain
ADHD Schizophrenia Schiz /Mood Anxiety Pseudoseizures
ADD Borderline Mood Dsrdr Chemical Addiction
RSD MPD PTSD Social isolation
Pain Dislexia Emot lability Self mutilation
Stroke Academic prob Anger
Spinal Cord Bruise Memory probs
Optic Neuropathy
Spastic limbs
Sleep
Vertigo
IBS
Headache

Cautions about interpretations:
This data must be treated with some skepticism for the following reasons:

1. The results look too good to be true.
2. Investigator bias, placebo effects, and investigator expectancy influences on patients' responses can play an unknown part in the quality of the results.
3. Distinctions were often not made among the differing degrees of improvement.
4. It is likely that there was a great deal of variation in the administration of the treatment.
   
5. The degree to which psychotherapies of one kind or another were used is unknown; however it is likely that some kind of psychotherapy was often used.

Nevertheless:
There is to my knowledge no known combination of treatments and biases, that has so positively impacted so many symptoms, across so many independent therapists (with differing backgrounds). In effect, the body of traditional treatment serves as a control for these observations in that it omits only the EEG-driven photic stimulation.

Conclusions:
The patients seen have been untreatable by conventional standards. Yet the results obtained via EEG-driven stimulation have evoked two classes of comments: First, "You have given me my [son, daughter, husband] back." Second, the patients, themselves, and those close to them have been "stunned" by the degree of function returned in the relatively short time.

This system has allowed new categories of problems to be treated, with beneficial results far from subtle, and with extremely few, minor and predictable side effects.

The categories of problems improved by treatment in 97% of the cases tried are: physical problem of paralysis, speech, energy, stamina, and sleeping; mood problems such as depression, anger, irritability and impatience, and explosiveness; anxiety; cognitive problems such as memory, attention, concentration, ability to find meaning in conversation and through reading.