Friday, August 17, 2012

CNS Wellness and a lot of hope

A couple of months ago, my neighbor mentioned CNS Wellness to me.  His company sponsors children with autism to seek treatment at CNS.  He thought it may be something we would want to look into for Finnley.  Then about one week after our neighbor mentioned something about CNS, I had lunch with a friend and she raved about CNS teaching her husband to walk again after he had a severe stroke.  Less than a week later, Dan and I were waiting for our table at Ella's Folk Art Cafe and overheard someone talking about CNS and how it helped him with his ADHD and depression.  Its funny how that happens some times.  You go your whole life not knowing about something and within a short period of time, you hear about it from multiple sources.

So, we took Finn to CNS two weeks ago for an evaluation.  We met with a neuro-scientist who asked me a lot of questions about Finnley and he observed Finnley's behavior.  At the end of the hour long meeting, we agreed that we should "map" Finn's brain.  I brought Finn back for a Q-EEG and Dan, Finn's teacher, and I complete Conner's Behavior Assessments.

Last night, Dan and I met with the neuroscientist again to review the results.  I will post parts of the assessment once I get a soft copy, but it is all very interesting and exciting.  Finn's brain, in many ways is normal.  The front part of his brain is actually completely unaffected by his underlying genetic issues.  This is great news, because in theory, this means Finn has at least normal intelligence.  Where there is disconnect is in his temporal section of the brain.  The section for sensory, memory, language, etc...His neurons are going in all kinds of different directions and not communicating properly.  The doctor said if he didn't know anything about Finn's history and just looked at his Q EEG, he would think that he has autism.  We have talked at length how Finn would probably give a false positive for autism, mainly because of his communication problems. 

One thing that I found interesting, is that Finn is also demonstrating anxiety.  We talked about the possible reasons...physical distress, emotional distress, or maybe it is that he is smart enough to know that he is different. 

So, what does this all mean?  It all means that there is a 70% chance that doing neurofield and LENS therapies will help make those neurons communicate like they are supposed to.  We will also eventually start neurofeedback training if we are seeing positive results.  Dan and I are very excited to start treatments.  Finn will go two days a week for 30 minute sessions and he will really just have to sit there while electric impulses are sent to his brain.  Should be easy.  After 10 therapy sessions, we will do another brain map and see if there is any sign of improvement.  If there isn't, we will most likely not continue unless we are seeing positive results at home.  If there is signs of improvement, we will continue for 30-40 therapy sessions. 

To give you an idea of some of the success CNS has had.  They had an 8 year old child come in.  She was non-verbal - she had never said a word her entire life.  She is now only 1 grade level behind.  She is saying sentences.  She is behaving more like a typical child. 

I am filled with hope right now for Finnley.  This isn't going to cure his underlying genetic issues, but the thought of Finnley being able to truly communicate his needs and to perhaps have a chance at being an independent adult could not make me happier.  So we are off on a new adventure

If you would like more information on CNS-Wellness, here is the its website. 
http://www.cns-wellness.com/

1 comment:

  1. HI - I heard a presentation by this company today in San Francisco and it seemed very interesting. Our daughter has an undefined learnings disability and we would be very interested to learn more about an approach like this. How was your experience with CNS-Wellness? Did you see results?

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