Drugs 'of no benefit' to hyperactive children [ADHD]

The Telegraph ^ | 11/1/2007 | Gary Cleland

[bruinbirdman]

Drugs given to thousands of hyperactive children have no long-term benefits and could in fact be stunting their development, a major study has said.

The study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) found that, while powerful drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta resulted in short-term behavioural improvements, after three years those benefits had disappeared.

Children who took the drugs for the full three years were also found to have stunted growth, according to the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA).

The MTA has followed 600 children in the United States with ADHD since the 1990s and has just published its latest findings. Prof William Pelham, co-author, from the University of Buffalo, said: "They weren't growing as much as other kids both in terms of their height and their weight.

"There were no beneficial effects - none. In the short run medication will help the child behave better, in the long run it won't.

"That information should be made very clear to parents."

Children with ADHD have an unusually short attention span and become easily distracted. They are over-active and restless, tend to perform poorly at school and struggle to develop social skills.

Tonight a BBC Panorama investigation will claim that 55,000 British children were prescribed ADHD drugs last year, at a cost to the NHS of £28 million.

The programme will also claim that thousands of ADHD sufferers are treated with powerful anti-psychotic drugs that can cause weight gain, diabetes and even brain damage. About 8,000 children were given drugs such as Risperdal and Zyprexa in 2005.

Dr Tim Kendall, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "A generous understanding would be to say that doctors have reached the point where they don't know what else to offer, and they haven't really got the right supports to help parents and children in difficult circumstances.

"But I think even that is no real excuse for drugs which are associated with such severe side effects."

Dr Kendall heads a team that is drawing up new guidelines for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) for the treatment of ADHD sufferers.

He said the guidelines would focus on providing not just medication, but also support networks and parent training programmes.

"I think the important thing is that we have a comprehensive approach which doesn't just focus on one type of treatment," he added.

It is thought ADHD could affect up to five per cent of British youngsters.

One sufferer, Craig Buxton, 14, from Stoke-on-Trent, has been on medication for 10 years without his behaviour improving.

He was recently removed from his school after assaulting three teachers. His family feel they are being let down and that Craig will end up in prison if they are not given more support.

Alan Hudson, Craig's step-father, said: "As he's getting older he's getting much stronger, and who knows what he's going to do."

[BipolarBob]

It is unnatural for children to be still at that age for all day. They need to increase recess or PE time to encourage running or strenuous activity to burn calories and this will take care of itself. All my opinion of course YMMV.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Gee, nobody could have seen this one coming.

/ sarcasm

[yankeedame]

Drugs given to thousands of hyperactive children have no long-term benefits and could in fact be stunting their development, a major study has said. The study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) found that, while powerful drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta resulted in short-term behavioural improvements, after three years those benefits had disappeared.

You know, is this wasn't coming from socialized, free, universal, government health care program reduced to exploding then benefits of maggots, leeches, and the unscrewing of every other light bulbs or so in hospitals, no surgeries for fatties or smokers, etc. I might take this report a little more seriously.

All I can see now is them pouring over stacks of papers and thinking: "How can we cut services and yet still make 'em think we care about them?"

[secretagent]

Kiddie cocaine.

[Ronin]

This is what I call a total “no brainer”. I have been appalled for the longest time about the distribution of these powerful drugs to kids that are just being kids.

Noisy, active, bouncy, rambunctious kids.

[luckystarmom]

We’ve just started to give my daughter anti-seizure medication. We do not want to give her any medication because you never know what the long term affects are. However, she has brain damage, she just had a grand mal seizure, and she had an abnormal EEG. We have to give her the medication.

With ADHD, there are a lot of other options than medication, but I see parents quickly jumping on the medication bandwagon. I think a few kids probably do need it, but not as many as are prescribed.

[rb22982]

I’ve seen it first hand with my brother in the 90s. They worked for about a year with him and then stopped. Plus they made him VERY tempermental coming off the effects. I’ve long thought from personal experience what this study reports.

[Viking2002]

"There were no beneficial effects - none. In the short run medication will help the child behave better, in the long run it won't. That information should be made very clear to parents."

This is the definitive 'NO SHIT' statement of the week. My stepdaughter was on Ritalin, Wellbutrin, Adderal, and a concert of other drugs for quite a few years. ADD, ADHD, and all those other acronyms that the nutcrackers like to hang on people. It got to the point where her mother and I lost any sort of faith in them, and she cut them off - cold turkey. Within a week, there was a marked improvement in her demeanor, and shortly thereafter, her ability to focus on something lucidly for a period of time was amazing. I lived in the hell that pharmacopic cult foisted upon us - it's been nothing more than the Big Brother to Algore's Global Whining hysteria.

[TornadoAlley3]

[highimpact]

Are you suggesting that my 8 y/o son shouldn’t take heavy psychotropic drugs to combat restlessness and boredom? But, but, but....the government experts said the drugs will just calm him down and allow him to focus!

Thirty years ago, we used to have four recesses a day. We’d play tackle football and smear the q**er. We played real baseball with a real hardball and real bats. We played tag and we raced. We played baseball, soccer, four-square, and tetherball. Occasionally, somebody would get a bloody nose or a scraped knee, but I don’t remember anybody filing a lawsuit. We need to get back to the basics. Work hard, play hard, relax, and repeat.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Also get rid of all the stupid homework. Research has been unable to find any correlation between homework and academic achievement before the high school level, and yet elementary school children continue to be sent home after a long day of sitting, with piles of homework that they and their parents are convinced they must sit and do. Time magazine ran an article on this a few years back, and interviewed one father who was a former teacher himself, and who had told his child’s school officials point blank that his child would not be doing any homework assignments. We need more of that attitude from parents.

[hinckley buzzard]

There are numerous environmental adaptations that schools could initiate which would help with the ADD/ADHD problem. Unfortunately, for the educrats, the schools would then mightily resemble the schools prior to the 60's, when the idiot enthusiasts in the education colleges began to go off the deep end.

Stimulant medications have been remarkably effective with appropriately-diagnosed(the key to why the posted article is BS--no controls) hyperactive kids since before WW II. Any parent who has such a child should disregard the ignorant comments of the usual gibbering idiots here; learn about the disorder and its treatment; and find a competent physician. Don't deny your child possible successful treatment just because some ignoramus says it is all a scam. It isn't.

[lesser_satan]

That’s because “hyperactive children” is redundant.

[MrB]

ADHD:

Absent Dad/Husband Disorder

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

Have you investigated a ketonic diet?

[vpintheak]

The best medicine for these children is a stable family with both parents and several, as many as it takes, butt whoopings. Those kids will come around, I gaurantee it.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[tracer]

No surprise re: inhibition of growth and development. Methylphenidine and other meds used in the treatment of ADHD are potent appetite suppressants.

A newer medication, Focalin, has less of an anorectric effect, but it has not been approved for use in childhhood ADD or ADHD. A variety of coping skills can be taught to improve the executive function of individuals with ADD or ADHD, but most children afflicted with disorder could never go on to complete rigid, rote, and detail-intensive educational pursuits such those leading to careers as physicians and lawyers, but then, so what??

One afflicted with ADD (which usually is the course of things as an ADD-er gets older) can complete a difficult course of study at the doctoral and post-doctoral levels in the sciences and even do so at top-drawer research universities and research centers. I know this because I did so, although I was diagnosed as having ADD until I was 50 y.o.

I've done reasonably well in life, quite largely due to prayers answered in the form of blessings from the Lord, and have done even better after starting to take carefully selected medications.

Methylphenidate (Ritalin) in all of its formulations became less effective, but I have found the advanced-generation medication, Focalin, to be ideal with respect to its pharmacological properties. One of my regrets is that, had I know that I have ADD I would have avoided companies and positions that did not permit flexibility re: time and work activities. I am thriving and prospering while doing things I enjoy and at which I excel after having retired from the Feral Gummint.

I sometimes refer to myself as "Timex:" I took a licking but have kept on ticking." My childhood school years through my undergraduate degree was miserable, and although I continue to struggle against longstanding "baggage," I thank the Lord several times a day for preserving me and keeping me off of a seat on a railroad track.

If any of you are affected by ADD or ADHD, please feel free to contact me via FReepmail. I may be able to be of help to you in your struggle or that of a loved one or friend.......