Comprehensive Treatment for ADHD: An Update —ADHD Tip O the Day 789

OK, So I Lied – Here Is More From the ADHD Article by Rahil R. Jummani, MD,

This is actually the end of the article I’ve been reviewing, somewhat edited, with my comments in italics:

“CDC surveys have shown that about 17.5% of children with ADHD are not being treated for the disorder. Research demonstrated the superiority of medication for the short-term management of ADHD symptoms.¹¹ However, the long-term effects of treatment, such as therapeutic benefit and adverse effect burden, have been fiercely debated.”

True.  Some studies show that meds really help most people, but that over the years,  there is no long term benefit.  I find this quite unbelievable.  If a boy is in danger of failing a grade, driving his family and teachers crazy and interfering with the learning of other children, turning to drug abuse, turning to delinquency, having trouble making and keeping friends, having depression – or a girl is significantly underperforming, with some similar risks – and medication can help them do better, even if for only a few years, aren’t they going to do better later?  And even if not, what is the value to everyone to have the symptoms abated for those years?

But, in fact, most studies show very significant long term benefits, including lower incidence of drug abuse, for the ADHD children who are treated.

 I won’t go into the benefits of treatment for adults today.

“There is also rising concern about stimulant misuse, especially among adolescents and young adults; they may feign symptoms of ADHD to obtain stimulants for performance enhancement. It is therefore imperative to assess both current and historical symptoms and to clarify the degree of functional impairment. Careful monitoring of treatment and requests for prescriptions is critical.”

True.  Studies show that the stimulants do not actually improve performance in non-ADHD people, but give them the impression that they did.

“Both the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Academy of Pediatrics have published clinical guidelines for the evaluation and treatment of ADHD.^13,14 Treatment should be comprehensive and include psychoeducation for the patient and his or her family, cognitive-behavioral therapies, academic accommodations and services in the school setting, and executive functioning and social skills development. Although medications for the management of ADHD address core symptoms, it is increasingly recognized that they must be paired with other therapeutic interventions to achieve the best prognosis.”

True.  But just the medication alone can give significant help to many, just not the best.  The consensus is that in very young children, the interventions should be tried first.

doug

Bonus Links:

Many Links to ADHD treatment articles, most but not all are negative, the more positive ones are near the bottom.  Not very up to date (unlike my post!)

Reports That Are More Positive 

The Whole Entire Complete Article by Rahil R. Jummani, MD

Notes O the Day:

1. I think that if the meds help a child with ADHD, that’s a great thing, and if they don’t, there is a fair chance that the diagnosis is not correct.
2. I plan to go more into the effects of treatment, pro and con, an into treatment of adults.  (I plan to.)  There is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding out there.

So try something.

Enough.

So try something different.

(Not really.)

Children with ADHD tend to have problems in school. Duh.

Life with ADHD.

Anyone can make a mistake, we just do it more often.

Here’s my latest post.

@addstrategies  #adhd  #add  @dougmkpdp