ADHD

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Parents of children with ADHD frequently ask whether there are nonmedication treatments that are effective for managing their children’s symptoms of ADHD. A recent meta-analysis provides an answer to this clinically important question.

The team psychiatrist for Super Bowl Champs, the Baltimore Ravens, draws on his own professional career of working with athletes of all ages and levels and provides a comprehensive presentation of the literature in the emerging field of sports psychiatry.

Research over the past 2 decades has demonstrated that ADHD occurs frequently and causes considerable suffering in patients and their families. ADHD begins in early childhood and persists through adolescence and into adulthood in 70% of those affected.

A recent article in the New York Times reports that doctors are prescribing stimulant drugs to compensate for the bad schools their child patients have to attend. Rates of ADHD have tripled in the last 15 years-precisely because many kids are being diagnosed with fake ADHD to make them eligible for medications and/or extra school services.

There is promising evidence that some complementary and alternative medicine therapies can alleviate ADHD symptoms. These may include herbals such as Bacopa and Pycnogenol, as well as supplements such as zinc.

Seventy percent of antidepressants are prescribed by primary care doctors with little training in their proper use, under intense pressure from Big Pharma, drug salespeople, and misled patients, after rushed 7-minute appointments and subject to no systematic auditing. The cash-strapped FDA is beholden to industry for funding. And it gets worse.

Ongoing shortages of several psychotropic medications have wreaked havoc among patients and their families, caused frustration and reluctant prescription switches among physicians, and prompted investigations by Congress.