NEBA Health, LLC has received a US patent 8,509,884 which protects a key aspect of the NEBA system: integrating the biomarker with a clinician's workup for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). "NEBA is not a standalone diagnostic," said Dr Steven M Snyder, research and development vice president. "After the clinician's ADHD evaluation, NEBA helps them determine if the symptoms are due to ADHD or if further testing is warranted."
"Integrating the NEBA biomarker with a clinician's initial diagnostic impression can bring a clinician's diagnosis more in line with that of multidisciplinary team," said Dr Snyder. Research supports that compared to a clinician alone, a multidisciplinary team is better able to determine if ADHD-like symptoms are accounted for by another condition.
In order to diagnose ADHD, a clinician not only observes criteria regarding behavioral symptoms and impairment, but also must determine whether symptoms would be better accounted for by another condition. Because ADHD shares symptoms with other disorders, the diagnosis may be difficult. According to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 9.5 per cent of all children and adolescents have an ADHD diagnosis. The ADHD diagnosis rate is increasing. CDC states that rates of ADHD diagnosis increased an average of three per cent per year from 1997 to 2006 and an average of 5.5 per cent per year from 2003 to 2007.
"In their ADHD evaluation, clinicians may be challenged in the current medical environment to determine the primary diagnosis when overlapping symptoms are present," said Howard Merry, president of NEBA Health. "We are delighted that the USPTO has awarded Dr. Snyder the patent. It covers NEBA's core technology, and it's another validation point for the seven years we spent developing and validating NEBA."
NEBA Health has developed the first FDA approved medical device based on brain waves to help assess ADHD. The device, NEBA, is cleared in the USA (K112711), CE marked, and Health Canada licensed. To our knowledge, the NEBA FDA validation study is the largest ADHD diagnostic study of this nature ever conducted (275 subjects at 13 clinical sites).