Helping her son Koa, a high school senior at the time, recover from an illness proved to be a life-changing experience for Shawna Joy Scott, who not only found a solution to his health problems, but a new career for herself.
A straight-A student taking honors courses, the answer to Koa Scott’s sudden onset of reading and migraine problems turned out to be Neurogen Brain Balancing/Optimization, a neurofeedback treatment, which cured him of his constant headaches while establishing a new mission in life for his mother.
Joy Scott said she has a new mission now. “My goal this year is to have this (treatment) get out to as many people as possible,” said Scott, who’s set up shop as a Neurogen HPN practitioner at her business, neurogenNOW, at 4305 Gesner St., Suite 215 in Bay Park. She also makes house calls with her mobile equipment.
“I never imagined I would be part of making a healing difference for people in their lives,” said Scott adding, “But when you see someone feel better almost immediately … It’s the absolute most rewarding thing I could be doing in my life.”
Neurofeedback therapy, otherwise known as brain balancing, is a treatment method aimed at changing the way the brain responds to certain stimuli. It is designed to improve patients’ cognitive performance helping them with their concentration, memory, reasoning, and verbal ability. It has been used to treat numerous disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), epilepsy, anxiety, depression, and insomnia, among other mental health conditions.
The Neurogen procedure involves a chair-bound patient having five electrode sensors placed on their head and neck to measure the electrical activity of their brain using an electroencephalograph (EEG) unit. Three electrode sensors stay in place throughout the session, and two electrode sensors are moved to specific site pairs by the practitioner.
The EEG unit then transmits the signal to the computer, the computer software, in turn, responds by sending low-intensity pulses back through the EEG unit to the brain, interrupting irregular patterns, and stimulating new healthy ones. The outcome is the minimization of unhealthy brain waves and the symptoms associated with them.
Neurofeedback is painless as electronic signals sent are far below anything a person can feel or detect. The amount of energy the device delivers is very small and safe, 2.5 picowatts. A picowatt is 1/1000th of a watt.
Over the past four years of practice, Scott recollects she’s worked on balancing close to 2,000 heads with neurofeedback. “The beauty is it can’t hurt you,” she said. “It is just working with bringing your brain back into its optimum work level.”
The number of hour-long sessions needed for each patient varies from person to person and with the nature and extent of their ailments. Some may feel immediate results while others may take a few sessions to recognize any benefits. It typically takes many sessions for the effects to last.
Initial improvements with Neurogen are often temporary, but due to the cumulative nature of the sessions, the improvements last longer with each session. Results also tend to endure and improve over time. A typical series is 15-20 sessions for adults, while youth usually require less time.
Scott added the growing complexity of society with all its demands is placing greater stress on individuals, thus necessitating the need for more people to re-balance their mental functions.
“In our day and age, with all the different social media, the reality is people are having memory and dementia issues like never before,” she said adding neurofeedback can help improve functionality in numerous ways. “I’ve worked with seniors in their 70s to help them maintain their memory,” Scott said.
“I’ve worked with college students to help them before they take their finals (tests), as the procedure can help you concentrate. I’ve also worked with people whose anxiety levels went down.”
Scott added she had one patient who said she cured his lazy eye. “I didn’t even know he had a lazy eye,” a surprised Scott said adding, “The treatments helped him bring his eye into focus.”
Now that she’s found a new calling with neurogenNOW, Scott was asked if she plans to expand her outreach. “Right now, all I want to do is help people,” she concluded.
For more information, visit neurogennow.com.
NEUROGEN NOW
Where: 4305 Gesner St., Suite 215.
Info: neurogennow.com, 619-990-5516.
