The Story of Dr. Staso
and EEG Neurofeedback

After the successes Margaret had with my first three difficult cases, I began to routinely ask all my clients if they had a history of head injury.  To my surprise, an informal survey revealed about 50%.  Since some people have no recall of an injury, I have always assumed that number to be higher.  I then provided a handout to my patients whom I suspected would benefit from Margaret’s treatment. 

I wrote, “The reason why I have referred you to Margaret Ayers, an expert in EEG neurofeedback, is because in my opinion there is sufficient evidence to believe that there is abnormality in your brain waves.  There are a variety of reasons why your brain waves might be abnormal.  The most common reason is a head injury that occurred at some point in your life.  It may have been a bicycle accident, a falling down and hitting your head, car accident, or another event that caused trauma to your skull.  The second most common reason is genetic.  Sometimes a person is born with a brain pattern that is slightly abnormal.  Observable signs of this include attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, and hyperactivity.  Abnormal brain waves can also be due to stroke and seizures.  Sometimes serious infection of the body and  anoxia (near drowning or cardiac arrest) can also cause abnormalities. The problems that can result include difficulty concentrating, learning disabilities, some forms of depression, sleep disturbance, migraine headaches, cluster headaches, psychomotor agitation, anxiety, over-reaction to events, and/or decreased frustration tolerance.”

Over the years I have learned to spot indications of head injury and make referrals to Margaret Ayers.  Almost all of those who make the drive to Beverly Hills show improvement in their presenting symptoms.  Aggressive behavior patterns are almost always a sign of head injury.

Head injury is the least understood and most under diagnosed condition in this country.  It contributes to many of the problems that clinicians see.  Woven into other presenting symptoms, and without proper training, most clinicians simply don't see the signs.  Also, the manifestation of head injury can take decades to unfold.  Damage from head injury never fully goes away.  A young brain can compensate for it.  However, as a person ages, the brain becomes less capable of compensating and symptoms begin to show almost imperceptibly.  Contrary to popular belief, having memory problems in middle age isn’t a sign of normal aging.  It's easy for clinicians to misidentify, misdiagnose, and mistreat patients.  In my practice, when my patients do not responded to psychotherapy, my first assumption is there is some form of mild to moderate brain impairment.

There is a long list of symptoms that can be caused by head injury or brain dysfunction that are not often easy to spot and can be so similar to other diagnosable problems.  These include symptoms such as fatigue, chronic sleep disturbance, headaches, dizziness, noise sensitivity, difficulty sustaining attention, difficulty concentrating, short-term memory impairment, forgetfulness, deficits in ability to reason, impairment in judgment, difficulty initiating tasks, difficulty processing information, difficulty getting organized, impaired comprehension, indecisiveness, difficulty learning new things, reduced creativity, academic problems, low frustration tolerance, apathy, misperception of time, difficulty sustaining relationships, unremitting depression, excessive irritability, anxiety, excessive anger, mood swings, rage-like behavior, and being too easily brought to tears. Looking at this list, its easy to understand why it is misdiagnosed.  Also, for a person who has had a past head injury, as few as only one of these symptoms may be caused by the injury.  The others may be a sign of an entirely different problem.  In my clinical experience, however, repairing the damage from the head injury via EEG neurofeedback leads to overall improvement in a person’s life.  At minimum there seems to be a sort of neural integration that takes place.  A person’s strengths are woven together in a higher order that improves general functioning and well being.