Posted on 06/06/2006 8:49:07 AM PDT by neverdem
The use of potent antipsychotic drugs to treat children and adolescents for problems like aggression and mood swings increased more than fivefold from 1993 to 2002, researchers reported yesterday.
The researchers, who analyzed data from a national survey of doctors' office visits, found that antipsychotic medications were prescribed to 1,438 per 100,000 children and adolescents in 2002, up from 275 per 100,000 in the two-year period from 1993 to 1995.
The findings augment earlier studies that have documented a sharp rise over the last decade in the prescription of psychiatric drugs for children, including antipsychotics, stimulants like Ritalin and antidepressants, whose sales have slipped only recently. But the new study is the most comprehensive to examine the increase in prescriptions for antipsychotics.
The explosion in the use of drugs, some experts said, can be traced in part to the growing number of children and adolescents whose problems are given psychiatric labels once reserved for adults and to doctors' increasing comfort with a newer generation of drugs for psychosis.
Shrinking access to long-term psychotherapy and hospital care may also play a role, the experts said.
The findings, published yesterday in Archives of General Psychiatry, are likely to inflame a continuing debate about the risks of using psychiatric medication in children. In recent years, antidepressants have been linked to an increase in suicidal thinking or behavior in some minors, and reports have suggested that stimulant drugs like Ritalin may exacerbate underlying heart problems.
Antipsychotic drugs also carry risks: Researchers have found that many of the drugs can cause rapid weight gain and blood lipid changes that increase the risk of diabetes. None of the most commonly prescribed antipsychotics is approved for use in children, although doctors can prescribe any medication that has been approved for use.
Experts said that little was known...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
We can solve this easily by throwing pot smokers in jail.
Please tell me I wasn't the only one wondering who the heck Rose Fivehold was.
Take these drugs, no don't take drugs....
LOL! No, you weren't. Come on, guys, pictures of young Rose Fivefold needed!
On topic, at least they gave some "from what - to what" numbers, but it still doesn't make much sense to me.
I wondered who young Rose Fivefold was, too! (Maybe related to the Ben Folds Five.)
I only count four folded towels.
You sure that is not Rose Fourfold instead?
You must be, because her real name was Rose Fivefold.
LOL! I just got finished doing that!
Ben Folds Five's cousin?
Rose is off her meds today.
Daughter recently took her daughter to a therapist because she kept having nightly nightmares. The so-called doctor talked to the 6 yr old child for about 10 minutes and prescribed Risperdal for her.
They came over to the house afterwards and I threw the Risperdal in the trash and told her to keep her away from the doctors.
Amazing.
“Thanks to Zyprexa®, young Rose Fivefold can smile through washday drudgery.”
LOL!
Or what?
Or as in
Use of MaryJane, by the old bougainvillea, down
but
"Use of Antipsychotics, by the Young Rose, Fivefold"
“Thanks to Zyprexa®, young Rose Fivefold can smile through washday drudgery.”
Does that Zyprexa® stuff have some kind of unintended side-effect that makes your head appear too big for your body, or is it just me? ;) :D
Poor, poor little Rose. She's psychotic, you know. Good thing they got her on them drugs right quick, or else who knows what might've happened.
Young Rose Fivefold.
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