The overwhelming circumstances that health professionals are experiencing during this global crisis has been and continues to be taxing on their well-being. Prolonged stress for weeks/months can trigger an acute stress disorder (ASD), which can snowball to increased risk for additional mental health disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression. It is clear: medical staff are next in the line of harm.
In light of this, we have launched a collaborative project to meet the needs of the medical staff, especially those who are not engaged in psychological or other group interventions. We want to share this project with you, in hope that you might join us or form such a group in your community.
It is imperative for this at-risk group to know how to identify their level of stress and to learn self-regulatory techniques to regulate their response when facing daily stressful conditions. Current advancements in psychophysiological monitoring and biofeedback are better adapted to the clinical setting, such as improved portability and ease-of-use. Guided by physiology-based techniques, biofeedback can introduce health professionals to activities specifically designed to build awareness and decrease the stress response, while promoting coping mechanisms that might help them to prevent further mental health issues.
Join us in this webinar, where we will talk about this collaborative project as well as present basic anatomical and physiological concepts associated with the stress response (breathing, heart rate variability, peripheral temperature, and galvanic/electrodermal skin response). These biosignals can be harnessed into both assessment tools as well as a training tools to facilitate physiological balance for stress management. Thought Technology will also be offering an ambitious deal to facilitate the project's success.
Presenter biographies:
Diana Martinez, MD, MSc, PhD, LMHC, BNC
Diana is a medical doctor with a specialty in Neurorehabilitation. She completed a fellowship in Neurological Rehabilitation from IAHP, Philadelphia, USA in 2006; M.Sc in Neurological Rehabilitation in 2009, Fellowship in Neurophysiology from University Hospital, Cleveland, USA in 2012 and PhD from De Montfort University from Leicester, UK in 2018. She has 15 years of experience treating severe brain injured patients in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Italy, China, Brazil, Colombia and Honduras.
She developed, along with other professionals, an integrative intervention to rehabilitate neurological conditions including neurofeedback and other non-invasive brain stimulation techniques. She has experience treating patients with epilepsy, learning disorders, behavioral disorder, mood disorders, sleep disorders, TBI and CP. She has extensive experience in neurophysiology and EEG/qEEG/ERP interpretation. She is the co-founder of Boston Neurodynamics, and the current president of the Mexican society of Bio and Neurofeedback (SMNB).
Ainat Rogel, PhD, MSW, BCN, LICSW
Ainat is the co-founder and co-director of Boston Neurodynamics, where she practices neurofeedback, performs and analyzes brain mapping (qEEG). She trains and supervises neurofeedback practitioners and students, and presents internationally. She specialized in developmental trauma and PTSD. Ainat currently serves as the ISNR (International Society of Neurofeedback and Research) Board of Directors Secretary. Ainat advocates incorporating neurofeedback and biofeedback as part of therapy in general, and in her practice specifically focuses on developmental trauma. She also believes in fundamental and large-scale research studies.
Ainat has a PhD in Computer Science and Neurobiology, a licensed independent clinical social worker, and a BCIA certified neurofeedback provider and supervisor. For many years, she worked as a brain researcher at MIT and Harvard Medical School, as well as in Israel at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Since 2010, she has focused on neurofeedback and was the chief researcher for neurofeedback at the Trauma Center at JRI, where she conducted neurofeedback studies.
Leon Morales-Quezada, MD
Dr. Leon Morales-Quezada is a physician-scientist with experience in neurocognitive rehabilitation, noninvasive neuromodulation, applied psychophysiology, and technology development for neurological rehabilitation. Dr. Morales-Quezada received his MD degree from Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes and completed clinical training in emergency medicine and intensive care. He also completed a fellowship and Masters in Neuropsychology Rehabilitation at Touro College, a PhD in Cognitive Neurosciences from De Montfort University in Leicester UK, and a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health.
Dr. Morales-Quezada was awarded with the prestigious Fellowship in Integrative Medicine from the Harvard-NIH program, Division of General Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. He is currently a Research Faculty from Spaulding Rehabilitation Research Institute and fellow from the Ellen R. and Melvin J. Gordon Center for the Cure and Treatment of Paralysis. Dr. Morales-Quezada research interests focus on noninvasive neuromodulation, the placebo effect, and technology development applied in rehabilitation and behavioral medicine.