Teenagers Diagnosed With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Teenagers Diagnosed With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Some commoners apostrophize it "brain doping" or "meducation". Others ID the problem "neuroenhancement". Whatever the term, the American Academy of Neurology has published a post paper criticizing the business of prescribing "study drugs" to boost memory and intelligent abilities in healthy children and teens medicine. The authors said physicians are prescribing drugs that are typically in use for children and teenagers diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disturbance (ADHD) for students solely to benefit their ability to ace a critical exam - such as the college fee SAT - or to get better grades in school.

Dr William Graf, move author of the paper and a professor of pediatrics and neurology at Yale School of Medicine, emphasized that the proclamation doesn't request to the appropriate diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. Rather, he is anxious about what he calls "neuroenhancement in the classroom". The problem is similar to that caused by performance-boosting drugs that have been Euphemistic pre-owned in sports by such athletic luminaries as Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire, he explained.

So "One is about enhancing muscles and the other is about enhancing brains," Graf said. In children and teens, the use of drugs to increase unrealistic discharge raises issues including the future long-term effect of medications on the developing brain, the differentiation between normal and abnormal intellectual development, the inquiry of whether it is ethical for parents to force their children to take drugs just to promote their academic performance, and the risks of overmedication and chemical dependency, Graf noted.

The lickety-split rising numbers of children and teens attractive ADHD drugs calls attention to the problem, Graf said. "The reckon of physician office visits for ADHD directing and the number of prescriptions for stimulants and psychotropic medications for children and adolescents has increased 10-fold in the US over the at the rear 20 years," he mucroniform out.

Recent parent surveys show about a 22 percent escalation in ADHD, a 42 percent rise in the brawl among older teens and a 53 percent boost among Hispanic children, according to the paper. While Graf acknowledged that the details about rising numbers associated with ADHD includes a platoon of cases that have been appropriately diagnosed as ADHD, he said the raise - especially among older adolescents - suggests a fine kettle of fish of overdiagnosis and overmedication.

And "We should be more cautious with healthy children in treating them with drugs they don't need," he said. "The high-minded surplus tips against overuse and toward caution because children are still growing and developing and there's a lot we don't know". The office paper, published online March 13, 2013 in the history Neurology, was also approved by the Child Neurology Society and the American Neurological Association.

Dr Mark Wolraich, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and chairman of the subcommittee that wrote ADHD guidelines for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that his heap was not consulted in the unfolding of the situation daily Graf developed. Wolraich popular that the AAP also did not guide the use of stimulant medications for performance enhancement or pleasure.

Yet Wolraich said he is disturbed that recommendations against the use of ADHD drugs may disorient parents, who already are frequently hesitant to give prescription medications to their children for ADHD. "The exegesis may have an unfavorable impact," Wolraich said. "I annoyance that we're focusing too much on the downside and it will away people from getting the help they need keep skincare. We have a lot of good evidence about the use of medications and it is demonstrably effective in the short term for treating the symptoms you conjure up with ADHD".