I have a nine-year-old son who has difficulty maintaining his focus while in the classroom, but performs very well academically. As a health care professional I have evaluated alternative methods (other than medical treatment) to address my son’s attention issue. My son takes no medication to help assist him in the classroom.

For the past four weeks we have been working with Bala Pillai who is a physical therapist. She started my son on a program called Brain Gym. Since starting with Mrs. Pillai, he drinks more water, is beginning to concentrate a little more on completing his home-work without constant reinforcement and uses visual feedback to help him perform better with a particular task.

Mrs. Pillai uses exercises that involve the brain working as a bilateral network. For example, an exercise may include tracking an object while crossing your elbow to your knee and humming all at the same time.

In my own practice as an optometric physician, I see kids on medication for attention defficit issues and parents who were not given any other alternative options to consider. I feel that if parents knew about alternative methods to help assis their kids they would consider physical therapy and Brain Gym as another option.