Alpha Behavioral Care is happy to introduce the referenced EEG System to New Jersey residents and the New York metropolitan area. This promises to revolutionize psychiatric treatment by both recommending new treatments and speeding up the selection of appropriate medications. The biggest impact that rEEG provides is for those patients that have not been responsive to previous treatment efforts. Psychiatry provided them little hope at what one patient describes as an endless nightmare of trial and error medicine. Research indicates a 80-85% success rate compared to 60% success rate with conventional treatment regimens. The referenced EEG system is based on resting EEGs which remain stable over time. rEEG abnormalities respond predictably to specific medications. The rEEG is like the electrocardiogram which measures the electric currents generated by the heart and is used to guide cardiac therapy. By using rEEGs a clinician can individualize therapy according to the electro encephalogram which measures the electric currents generated by the brain.

The procedure couldn’t be simpler. A standard EEG reading is taken while the patient is awake. There is absolutely no pain or any other sensation in this 30-45 minute procedure. The patient has nothing to do but relax without falling asleep. The resultant digital EEG is first compared to average EEG values of people of the same age to determine the presence of any significant variations in brain processing and electro-chemical imbalance. Once these imbalances are defined, a separate outcomes database reflecting over 10,000 medication treatment episodes is then querried for patients having similar imbalances. The treatment success and failure of those patients are then reported back to the physician so that this experience can guide selection of medications. For example if the database tells us that no patients with the specific imbalances present in Ms. Jones reading have ever responded well to Prozac or Zoloft, it is reasonable to think that neither will Ms. Jones. We can save Ms. Jones a great deal of grief by avoiding those. However, if most patients with Ms. Jones readings responded well to a combination of Wellbutrin and Lamictal then this combination will be seriously considered.

Conventional psychiatric drug treatment can take up to a year or more to find the right medication treatment regimen. Through the power of the referenced EEG system the right medication can be found within weeks. Dr. William T. Richardson, Medical Director for Alpha Behavioral Care shared the following example. “I have seen a middle-aged married female who suffered from life long chronic depression. In spite of psychotherapy, Wellbutrin, Cymbalta, Xanax, Zoloft, and SAM-e, she was not helped. The rEEG test recommended Depakote. Within one week her depressive symptoms vanished. To date she has been maintained on supportive psychotherapy and a small amount of Depakote. She is doing very well”.

What is particularly interesting is that Depakote is used to treat both bipolar and impulse control disorders. It is not used for unipolar depression. Because she had no signs or symptoms of bipolar or impulse control disorders, she would never have been put on Depakote.

In summary, the system can find the right psychiatric medication quickly. In the treatment resistant patient (where no medication has worked) new effective treatments are recommended. These treatments are often medications that would never be tried based on a person’s history and mental status examination. This system leads to success in about 80% of patients.

To learn more about the rEEG system, please contact Alpha Behavioral Care at 908-273-0800 or you may email us at reception@alphabc.com.