“Attention, learning, and problem solving depend in part on the ability to plan and sequence actions and ideas. The Interactive Metronome helps individuals systematically exercise and often improve basic motor planning and sequencing capacities.”
Stanley Greenspan, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry,
Behavioral Sciences, and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School,
a noted child psychiatrist and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health’s Clinical Infant Development Program and Mental Health Study Center,
and is Chairman of IM’s Scientific Advisory Board
“The Interactive Metronome is spectacularly helpful. It is one of the most promising developments with non-medication of ADHD that's come along in a long while... This is really solid, extremely helpful non-medication (intervention) not only for ADHD but for mental functioning in general.”
Edward Hallowell, MD, author of Driven to Distraction,
and leading clinician and speaker on ADHD
| Interactive Metronome (IM) was developed in the
early 1990s and is used to help children with learning and
developmental disorders as well as adult neuro rehabilitation
patients. IM is a neuro-motor assessment & treatment tool used
in therapy to improve the neurological processes of motor planning
and sequencing.
Motor planning and sequencing are central to
human activity. From the coordinated movements needed to walk, to
the order of words in a sentence, planning and sequencing are
critical to efficient human function. Interactive Metronome (IM) is
the only therapy tool that improves motor planning and sequencing by
using neuro-sensory and neuro-motor exercises developed to improve
the brain's inherent ability to repair or remodel itself through a
process called neuroplasticity.
Clinical Foundation
The human brain's
efficiency and performance depend on the seamless transition of
neuronetwork signals from one area of the brain to another. Findings
in a recent study by Neal Alpiner, MD, "Functional MRI Study of the
Effects of IM on Auditory-Motor Processing Networks", suggest that
IM works by augmenting internal processing speed within the
neuroaxis. The key regions of the brain that are affected appear to
include the cerebellum, prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus and basal
ganglia. These parts of the brain are responsible for human timing
as well as other day to day functions such as: sustained attention,
language formulation, motor coordination and balance.
The IM
program provides a structured, goal-oriented process that challenges
the patient to synchronize a range of hand and foot exercises to a
precise computer-generated reference tone heard through headphones.
The patient attempts to match the rhythmic beat with repetitive
motor actions. A patented auditory-visual guidance system provides
immediate feedback measured in milliseconds, and a score is
provided.
Over the course of the treatment, patients learn
to:
- Focus and attend for longer periods of time
- Increase physical endurance and stamina
- Filter out internal and external distractions
- Improve ability to monitor mental and physical
actions as they are occurring
- Progressively improve coordinated performance.
Such patients include:
- Sensory Integration Disorder
- ADHD
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
- Cerebral Vascular Accident (CVA)
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Cerebral Palsy
- Non-verbal Learning Disorder
- Balance Disorders
- Limb Amputation
- Parkinson's Disease
- Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
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Because IM works on the core brain functions of
motor planning and sequencing, it is being used successfully by:
- Occupational Therapists
- Speech Language Pathologists
- Physical Therapists
- Educators
- Athletic Trainers
- Licensed Rehabilitation Medical and Mental
Health Professionals
- Neurologists, Psychiatrists and Psychologists
- Chiropractic Care Professionals
- Developmental/Behavioral Optometrists
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