MEAction: NEUROCOGNITIVE RESEARCH INSTITUTE IS BACK IN BUSINESS, ASSESSING PEOPLE WITH ME!

Andy

Retired committee member
The NeuroCognitive Research Institute (NCRI) is back in business, and we are once again supporting the myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) populations through research and clinical assessments. Our institute offers comprehensive neurocognitive assessment and clinical reports, which can be used for treating patients, assisting with disability claims and conducting research. Our assessment using LORETA neuroimaging provided the necessary medical knowledge for helping a patient with ME win a lawsuit to obtain his disability status. (Read the article).
https://www.meaction.net/2019/12/05...is-back-in-business-assessing-people-with-me/

In my opinion, it reads like an advert.
 
LORETA software is used in quantitative EEG, which is confirmed in the article. It shows major abnormalities in ME according to the limited research done so far. Its very early days but it does need further study in my opinion. I am guessing this happened in this case. In combination with repeat CPET it should be able to show both major physical impairment and major cognitive impairment. With the right tests in the future, ME patients should be winning their court battles, every time. After a whole lot do that the insurance industry may decide to change course, but will still make things difficult initially.
 
The Atlantic: A Map That Shows You Everything Wrong With Your Brain. Technology that compares your brain’s electrical activity to everyone else’s could revolutionize mental-health treatments—or worsen people’s obsessions with perfection.

EEG tests, which measure electrical signals in the brain, have been used for decades by physicians to look for anomalies in brain-wave patterns that might indicate stroke or traumatic brain injury. The kind of brain map I was getting used a neuroimaging technique formally known as quantitative electroencephalogram, or qEEG. It follows the same general principle as EEG tests, but adds a quantitative element: Kerson would compare my brain waves against a database of conventionally functioning, or “neurotypical,” brains. Theoretically, this allows clinicians to pick up on more subtle deviations—brain-wave forms that are associated with cognitive inflexibility, say, or impulsivity.

In neurotherapy, qEEGs are generally a precursor to treatments like neurofeedback or deep brain stimulation, which are used to alter brain waves, or to train people to change their own. Neurotherapy claims it can tackle persistent depression or PTSD or anger issues without resorting to talk therapy or pharmaceutical interventions, by addressing the very neural oscillations that underlie these problems. If you see your brain function in real time, the idea goes, you can trace mental-health issues to their physiological roots—and make direct interventions.

But critics argue that neurotherapy’s treatments—which might take dozens of sessions, each costing hundreds of dollars—have very little research backing them up. And although the mainstream medical community is starting to pay closer attention to the field, particularly in Europe, in the U.S. neurotherapy is still largely unregulated, with practitioners of varying levels of expertise offering treatments in outpatient clinics. At the most basic level, not everyone who’s invested in the technology that allows them to do qEEG testing is able to correctly interpret the resulting brain map. Certification to administer a qEEG test—a process overseen by the International qEEG Certification Board—requires only 24 hours of training, five supervised evaluations, and an exam, with no prior medical experience.

Just posting this for a bit of background information, not meant to sound quite as sceptical as this excerpt probably does in isolation, even if it is a ‘buyer beware’ marketplace. Also, qEEG is not just for ‘mental health’ conditions.
 
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Well, I found that article from the DePaul magazine interesting, but probably not for the right reason. I had not previously heard of anyone else starting with the same illness as me in 1980, in England, and here is someone from Wisconsin who did. She couldn't walk up a hill before the illness became apparent. I fell off a climb - though I did feel slightly better about that when I discovered that it had been regraded to Hard VS.
 
NeuroCognitive Research Institute

On their website:

Measuring Post Exertional Malaise
One of the most troublesome and poorly understood aspects of ME/CFS
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. These two names for this disease are typically combined, but they have been used separately. More recently, systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID) was proposed by the Institute of Medicine(...)
">ME/CFS
is the phenomenon known as post-exertional malaise (PEM). PEM refers to a sudden rapid energy loss that occurs after doing minor physical and/or mental tasks–there is literally no energy left, beyond what is needed for survival. This rapid decline in energy is difficult for family and friends to comprehend and they often have a hard time believing the condition is real. When normal people feel exhausted, they usually recover after a period of rest. This doesn’t happen to patients with ME/CFS
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. These two names for this disease are typically combined, but they have been used separately. More recently, systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID) was proposed by the Institute of Medicine(...)
">ME/CFS
, they cannot simply get out of bed and exercise–doing so only makes the their symptoms worse. This is because PEM is also marked by unpredictable flareups (e.g. cognitive impairments, increased muscle/joint pain, headache, etc.) can continue for hours or days, making it very difficult for patients to determine what events might have triggered their decline in function.

https://www.thencri.org/measuring-post-exertional-malaise/
 
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