First study to show that anxiety could be decreased in youth who did not respond to earlier cognitive-behavior therapy.
![Improving Treatment Strategies for Difficult-to-treat Anxiety in Youth Improving Treatment Strategies for Difficult-to-treat Anxiety in Youth](https://images.medindia.net/health-images/1200_1000/link-between-heritability-and-adhd.jpg)
‘Attention training is a better promising treatment option for children who do not respond to CBT.’
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"So there is a critical need to have other treatment options available for this population given that persistent anxiety is associated with distress, impairment in functioning, and elevated risk for other psychiatric disorders and suicide." Read More..
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The study is the first to provide a potentially effective augmentation strategy for children and adolescents with anxiety disorders who do not respond to CBT. The 64 participants, between the ages of 7 and 16 years old, in this study were selected after evaluations determined each still met the criteria for an anxiety disorder after receiving manualized cognitive behavior therapy.
After four weeks of attention training, 50 percent of participants no longer met the criteria for their primary anxiety diagnosis, according to the current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).
Participants received one of two forms of computer-based attention training. The first-attention bias modification treatment-trained attention toward neutral stimuli and away from threatening stimuli. The second-attention control training-trained attention to neutral and threatening stimuli equally. Both forms of attention training led to comparable reductions in anxiety.
"Attention training is a promising augment for children who do not respond to CBT," said the article's other co-lead author Wendy Silverman, PhD, the Alfred A. Messer Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
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Source-Eurekalert