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INTEGRATIVE TREATMENT

Jan 14
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Just What the Doctor Ordered: A Director’s Update on Personal and Social Coaching (PSC)

By | NESCA Notes 2019

By: Ann Helmus, Ph.D.
NESCA Founder/Director

So many wonderful things have happened at NESCA in the past year including our recruitment of many talented interns, post-doctoral fellows, and staff members, the opening of an office in the Foxborough/Plainville Area, and the promotion of several staff. As Founder and Director, I continue to be both proud and humbled by the incredibly talented staff I go to work with each day and the community of families and professionals who allow us the privilege of being part of their lives.

As the New Year often brings about health resolutions, including the desire to increase one’s physical and mental fitness, I am taking this opportunity to spotlight one of our most exciting new staff and services at NESCA: Certified Personal Trainer and Autism Fit Instructor Billy Demiri who leads our Personal and Social Coaching (PSC) Program.

When I arrived to check on how things were going with his first training session,  I heard Liam (not his real name) say, “I make muscular dystrophy look easy!”  This proclamation from a 10 year old boy who had, just hours before, during his evaluation, protested loudly that he would “never work with a coach, no matter what!”    Following his diagnosis of muscular dystrophy, a progressive, degenerative disorder, Liam had become clinically depressed.  Over the past few years, he was often irritable, oppositional, volatile, and completely sedentary.  While a specialized school placement, psychopharmacological intervention and therapy had all been helpful, Liam was still struggling.  His mother and I both viewed physical activity as being an important intervention for him, for medical and psychological reasons.

They were scheduled to have their intake session with Billy Demiri, who heads NESCA’s PSC program, after lunch on the day of Liam’s testing.    Clearly, getting Liam to “sign on” was going to be a challenge.    So, I hatched a plan that I explained to Billy and to Liam’s mother.  Liam’s mother was to tell him that he didn’t have to work with the coach but that she herself wanted to talk with him.  I suggested that Billy focus only on talking with Liam’s mother and not give any attention to Liam.  While Billy and Liam’s mother chatted, Liam was reading a book but regularly glancing over at them, clearly interested.  Eventually, he couldn’t resist joining the conversation.  Billy invited Liam’s mother to look at the exercise room and Liam indicated that he wanted to go too.  Liam succumbed to Billy’s gentle encouragement and was soon navigating an obstacle course and doing hurdle steps…with a huge smile on his face, a smile that I had not seen in the course of our evaluation.  His mother’s smile was even wider.

Liam came back eagerly the following week for his training session.  When he and Billy took a break, Liam told Billy, “I like this!  I can use the stuff that we’re doing, like when I’m feeling mad or upset, to make me feel better.”  He then shared with Billy how hard it’s been for him to know that he has muscular dystrophy and to be depressed.

Billy is not a psychotherapist but he is warm and an empathic listener, a young man who children and adolescents like, respect and trust.  He has done a remarkable job forging a strong connection with each of his clients and skillfully uses that relationship as the basis for getting them to take risks, move out of their comfort zone, and persist in the face of challenge, which are all ingredients in developing “grit.”  Billy’s clients make impressive progress not only physically but also emotionally.  Many of Billy’s clients struggle with self-esteem and the concrete, measurable improvements that they see on a regular basis in their physical capabilities is a huge self-esteem booster.    In addition, through the Physical and Social Coaching program, his clients reduce their level of anxiety, increase coping skills and learn about setting and achieving goals.

NESCA takes a highly integrative approach to the delivery of therapeutic services.  In the case of PSC, Billy coordinates care with the neuropsychologists who have evaluated his clients or the psychotherapists who are treating them so that he understands the underlying social-emotional concerns to be addressed in his sessions.  After an initial assessment of movement patterns, he develops an individualized physical training program that will result in improved physical well-being and serve as a vehicle for social-emotional growth for the client. As NESCA’s Founder and Director (and also a client of Billy’s!), I am tremendously proud to be able to offer this unique and ground-breaking service to our clients.

 

About the Author: 

NESCA Founder/Director Ann Helmus, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical neuropsychologist who has been practicing for almost 20 years. In 1996, she jointly founded the  Children’s Evaluation Center (CEC) in Newton, Massachusetts, serving as co-director there for almost ten years. During that time, CEC emerged as a leading regional center for the diagnosis and remediation of both learning disabilities and Autism Spectrum Disorders.

In September of 2007, Dr. Helmus established NESCA (Neuropsychology & Education Services for Children & Adolescents), a client and family-centered group of seasoned neuropsychologists and allied staff, many of whom she trained, striving to create and refine innovative clinical protocols and dedicated to setting new standards of care in the field.

Dr. Helmus specializes in the evaluation of children with learning disabilities, attention and executive function deficits and primary neurological disorders. In addition to assessing children, she also provides consultation and training to both public and private school systems. She frequently makes presentations to groups of parents, particularly on the topics of non-verbal learning disability and executive functioning.

 

Want to learn more about PSC? PSC will initially available for clients who are part of the NESCA family and have already participated in testing, consultation, or therapy at one of our Massachusetts or New Hampshire offices. To learn more about services, please email bdemiri@nesca-newton.com. Or, to book an intake with Billy, please complete NESCA’s Intake Form at https://nesca-newton.com/intake-form/ and select “Personal and Social Coaching (PSC)” as your reason for referral.

 

To book an evaluation with Dr. Helmus, NESCA Founder and Director, or one of our many other expert neuropsychologists, complete NESCA’s online intake form.

 

 

 

 

Neuropsychology & Education Services for Children & Adolescents (NESCA) is a pediatric neuropsychology practice and integrative treatment center with offices in Newton and Plainville/Foxbourough, Massachusetts as well as Londonderry, New Hampshire. NESCA serves clients from preschool through young adulthood and their families. For more information, please email info@nesca-newton.com or call 617-658-9800.

 

 

Feb 12
0

Acupuncture and its Role in Treating Anxiety

By | NESCA Notes 2018
By: Holly Pelletier, L.Ac.
Licensed Acupuncturist, NESCA
Whether or not you’re familiar with acupuncture, you may be wondering what role it could possibly play in the field of mental health. Most people associate acupuncture with the treatment of pain conditions, and although it has gained recent popularity and prevalence in our little corner of the world, it is often only given a portion of the credit it deserves when it comes to the scope of treatment possibilities.
Acupuncture is a branch of Chinese medicine based upon a meridian system that runs throughout the entire body. On the meridians, there are acupuncture points that can be accessed through different means such as needling, acupressure, or by using a warming herb called mugwort. The purpose of using these points is to move blockages of energy, blood, or fluids (i.e. lymph) in the body. By using different needling techniques and various point combinations you can either add to a deficient area or move an excess one.
How does acupuncture work with anxiety and other mental health concerns? To explain fully, we can look at it from two different perspectives:
The first is a more traditional “western” approach where we look at things on a biochemical level. Acupuncture points are specific areas beneath the surface of the skin that have high concentrations of nerve endings, mast cells, lymphatic vessels and capillaries. When an acupuncture needle is inserted into a point, it stimulates the sensory receptor, which in turn stimulates the nerve and transmits impulses to the brain. In this sense, it can be viewed as a “feedback loop” that directly affects your brain, your hormones, and your glands. So, the relaxed feeling you get after an acupuncture session is real, it is not just a placebo or “in your head”. The needles directly adjust imbalances in the body and allow the person to begin the healing process with a “blank slate.” This unique aspect, specific to acupuncture, is extremely powerful because it allows the body to access its own, innate power to heal itself.
The second approach is the stance of Chinese medicine, which frames anxiety as a symptom of something out of balance. If everything was functioning as it should, there would be no symptoms, we would live pain and stress free every single day of our lives. When something is “off”, tiny sensations start surfacing that at first may seem like nothing at all – a foggy head, fatigue, or tight shoulders. But as time goes by, symptoms worsen and the imbalance becomes larger, making it harder to reverse.
Zooming in even closer to examine just the anxiety is helpful as well. Anxiety comes in all forms. If you have only seen or felt it one way in yourself or your child, it may surprise you that there is a wide array of symptoms that can show up when someone experiences anxiety. Some may have digestive upset while others get headaches or a racing heart, and others may have trouble breathing or dissociate from the world around them. Often, a person is treated for anxiety and given the same medication as someone else, regardless of their symptoms. Rather than treating someone for anxiety and having one specific point protocol or herbal approach, acupuncture treats those symptoms associated with the anxiety instead. For instance, the headaches, or the palpitations that signal stress to the body. Therefore, each person is looked at individually and each case/course of treatment is completely unique.
As mentioned above, acupuncture is only a part of a much larger system of medicine. Other branches of the system include nutrition, meditation, herbs, and Qi Gong to name a few. Incorporating these other aspects allows the patient to not only feel better temporarily, but to possibly relieve the anxiety fully.
If you have any questions about acupuncture and want to see if you or your child would be a good candidate, please contact our acupuncturist, Holly at: hpelletier@nesca-newton.com
To read Holly’s Blog with simple ways to incorporate Chinese Medicine in daily life, visit: http://holisticallyinspiredblog.blogspot.com/
About the Author:
Holly Pelletier, L.Ac. is a licensed acupuncturist who practices part-time at NESCA. Holly Pelletier has been working with children of varying ages, in many different capacities since 2004. Prior to treating kids with acupuncture, she worked as a teacher, coach, and mentor. She exceptionally enjoys working with children and acupuncture because of their speedy response time and genuine excitement about this form of medicine. Holly has a very gentle technique and has specific training in non-insertive acupuncture styles, which does not require needling directly into the skin. In additions to working with children, Holly is also very passionate about working with issues involving women’s health, nutrition/herbs, neurological disease, and psychological challenges such as anxiety and depression.
For more information on our acupuncturist, Holly visit: http://www.hpelletieracu.com/