Postpartum Depression: Postpartum Depression Treatment

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Postpartum Depression: Postpartum Depression Treatment

Postpartum Depression: Postpartum Depression Treatment

March 15, 2012 at 09:55

Postpartum Depression: Postpartum Depression Treatment

Neurofeedback is a safe and effective treatment to greatly reduce or eliminate symptoms associated with Postpartum Depression and many other conditions. Clients typically respond to neurofeedback rapidly, with significant results noted within a few months of starting treatment.

Click here for more information on How Neurofeeback Works!

Traditional Treatment Options:

Medication:

There are a myriad of medications available as treatment options for postpartum depression, many of which have numerous side effects. Your physician would be the resource for more information about this option. Medication treats the symptoms, but does not address the true cause of the disorder. Effects are typically short-term; thus, this type of treatment is often on-going, with mixed results. Many of our clients are looking for a treatment plan without medication. We will work with your doctor in reducing or eliminating medications.

Nutrition:

Many health experts agree that improved nutrition often plays at least a limited role in relieving some symptoms in many disorders, including postpartum depression, and should be included in treatment options for most people. Dallas Brain Changers can assist you in finding healthier nutritional choices and/or can guide you to an appropriate nutritional professional.

Counseling/Psychotherapy:

When performed alone or practiced in conjunction with medication intervention, counseling and psychotherapy is a popular and well-known treatment for postpartum depression. However, this form of intervention may become a long-term and expensive endeavor, often spanning many years, with widely varying results.

Dallas Brain Changers Treatment Option:

When an integrated approach is utilized, involving both counseling and neurofeedback, results are achieved exponentially, often within a few months, and are proven to be more effective and long-lasting.

Postpartum Depression Treatment: Click here for Case Study

Neurofeedback and Postpartum Depression Treatment:

*Neurofeedback is an effective, non-drug, non-invasive treatment option that has been proven to permanently reduce or eliminate symptoms associated with many conditions, including postpartum depression. It is a technique of operant conditioning which directly changes brain function. Neurofeedback dramatically affects arousal regulation. In so doing, this ‘brain training’ can normalize the propensity to high or low arousal as seen in the qEEG or Brain Map of those with postpartum depression. Furthermore, neurofeedback directly acts on specific brain activity known to be altered in postpartum depression. Neurofeedback is an option for those seeking treatment without medication.

Because Postpartum Depression is interwoven with depression and anxiety disorders, there are two research articles listed below referencing the success of Neurofeedback with each of these conditions.

Depression Research Article:

D. Corydon Hammond, PhD Professor & Psychologist, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation University of Utah School of Medicine.

Neurofeedback treatments for depression (Baehr, Rosenfeld, & Baehr 1997, 2001; Hammond, 2000, 2004) appear very promising not only in bringing relief from depression, but in modifying the underlying biological predisposition for becoming depressed. Neurofeedback focuses on retraining the brain, for example, reversing the frontal brainwave asymmetry, with the goal of producing an enduring change that does not require people to remain on medication indefinitely. Training often requires about 20 to 22 sessions.

Anxiety Research Article:

Anxiety change through electroencephalographic alpha feedback seen only in high anxiety subjects.

Hardt JV, Kamiya J.

Subjects who were either high or low in trait anxiety used alpha feedback to increase and to decrease their electroencephalographic alpha activity. The alpha changes were tightly linked to anxiety changes, but only in the most highly anxious subjects (for whom symptoms were reduced in proportion to alpha increases, and was increased in proportion to alpha suppression). Low trait-anxious subjects were superior at both enhancement and suppression training, but their alpha changes were not related to these changes. In both groups, changes were generally unrelated to either resting levels or changes in frontalis electromyograms and respiration rate. These results suggest that long-term alpha feedback training (at least 5 hours) may be useful in treatment.

*Interested clients are advised to make an informed choice regarding Neurofeedback therapists, since there are several treatment options available. It is advised to look for a provider who is board certified by BCIA and a member of AAPB.

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