Interactive Metronome® (IM) is a research-based neurological assessment and training program designed to directly improve the processing abilities that affect motor planning and sequencing. IM improves human capacities by using neurosensory and neuromotor exercises developed to improve the brain’s inherent ability to repair or remodel itself through a process called neuroplasticity.
Interactive Metronome® helps people with:
Interactive Metronome® is beneficial for most neurological conditions. Here are some of the common applications:
- Sensory Integration Disorder
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Asperger’s Syndrome
- Cerebral Palsy
- ADD/ADHD
- Apraxia/Dyspraxia
- Dyslexia and Other Reading Disorders
- Language Deficits (e.g., poor verbal expression, motor and sequencing aspects of language)
- Alzheimer
- Parkinson’s
- Poor Attention and Memory
- Motor Coordination Difficulties
- Balance & Gait Disorders
- Poor Organizational Skills
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Brain Tumor (following surgery or chemotherapy)
- Non-verbal Learning Disorder
Who can Benefit?
IM has been shown to produce significant results in children and adults with a wide range of physical and cognitive difficulties. IM training is also used by professional athletes in the NFL, NHL, NLL, PGA, and by professional tennis players.
What are the Benefits?
Over the course of the IM treatment, participants 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
- Progressively improve performance
- Attention and Concentration
- Motor Control and Coordination
- Cognitive Processing
- Reading and Math Fluency
- Control of Aggression or Impulsivity
How Long does it Take?
It takes approximately 15 sessions of 30-minute- to-1- hour per session over a period of 5-8 weeks, (shorter time is expected) longer for those with severe conditions. For best results, this program needs to be done a minimum of 2 times a week.
How Does It Work?
The IM program provides a structured, goal-oriented training process that challenges the client to synchronize a range of whole body exercises to a precise computer-generated beat. The participant’s attempt to match the rhythmic beat with repetitive motor movements. IM’s game-like auditory-visual platform engages the individual and provides constant feedback at the millisecond level to promote synchronized timing in the brain.
Exercises can be customized and involve a hierarchy of increasingly complex and precisely timed motor movements intertwined with gradually higher and faster cognitive processing, attention, and decision making. It’s the only neuromotor therapy tool that can be used successfully with all individuals, even those who require total hands-on assistance due to cognitive and/or physical impairments (e.g., brain-injured persons) and those who are very young (infants & toddlers) or elderly (seniors).
Theory
IM improves the resolution and efficiency of an individual’s internal brain clock and neural efficiency.
There exists a growing body of literature describing the neural timing deficits as part of the cause in ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, Reading Disorders, Auditory Processing Disorder, Parkinson’s, and other conditions. Traumatic Brain Injury or Stroke may also disrupt timing in the brain.
Motor planning and sequencing are central to human activity – from the coordinated movements needed to walk or climb stairs, to the order of words in a sentence to provide meaning. When a child demonstrates a deficit in motor planning and sequencing, it’s typically accompanied by problems in learning, coordination, or behavioral control. Many children diagnosed with pediatric and
developmental disorders may show language deficits, poor organization skills, poor memory, poor fine and gross motor skills, and poor balance.
History
IM was developed in the early 1990s to help professional musicians numerically test and improve timing and rhythmic. It’s later used to help children with learning and developmental disorders. The children undergoing the IM treatments were able to develop significant increases in neurological and motor areas such as attention and concentration, motor coordination, language processing, and control of impulsivity.
Through years of clinical research and the efforts of innovative therapists, IM was soon being implemented as therapy program with older patients who also exhibited the same deficits as pediatric patients. These adult patients had suffered from a stroke, brain injury, amputation, or had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
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