Answers to Your Questions About
ADHD Medication and ADHD Behavioral Treatment

Q. What do behavioral treatments mean?

Behavioral treatments represents solutions that can be applied to children who suffer from ADHD and they stem from social skills training, psychotherapy, parent and educator training to support groups. One such example of a behavioral treatment would be the MTA, in which both the child's teachers and parents collaborate with the family to ensure that the child receives the proper treatment.

The program includes a summer camp lasting for eight week; a therapists works with the child, the parents and the teachers to train them into what symptoms to observe and then report back to him, either symptoms or behavior patterns at school or at home.

Moreover, a classroom aide works with the child for three months and assists him or her in his academic endeavors at school. They do tasks together and the aide helps the child understand the concepts taught at school.

Parents then met with the therapist or in small groups of parents with similar problems to discuss what to do continue doing. The summer camps is thus a conglomeration of academic work, effort and social behavior training.

Q. Which medications are used for ADD at the present?

All sorts of medication is used at the moment to treat ADD ranging from methylphenidate, otherwise called as Ritalin, to amphetamines such as (adderall, dexedrine or dextrostrat) which have been the most commonly used treatments for ADD.

However, a number of studies have challenged the safety and good use of these types of medications and its side effects on the patients. NIMH research has shown that elementary school children suffering from ADHD cope very well with two very effective treatments.

Elementary school children were the focus of a recent study conducted by the NIMH in which they wanted to monitor behavioral interventions. The study focused on six hundred children belonging to different schools and the study concluded that nine children out of ten had experienced an alleviation of their symptoms and taht they had felf better as a consequence of the treatments they had to follow.

Therefore, you can use antidepressant medications as a backup in case something else fails to work because children do not generally respond very well to stimulants. Moreover, these stimulants also have side effects as well as comorbid conditions, triggering anxiety, mood disorders or tics.

Therefore, antidepressants would be useful in the treatment but not essential to it. While the treatments the children received in the MTA study proved to be beneficial to their condition, there are also some medications who show severe side effects and thus, it is best to avoid taking medication unless absolutely necessary and find suitable alternatives to cope with the disorder.

For instance, children have deficits in social skills, anxiety or stressful home circumstances were found to benefit the most from the alternative ADHD treatments.

Q. Should medication be taken in standard doses?

 One should carefully administer drug management because medication in large doses can be detrimental for the child. The usual range in which medication is acceptable to be administered in five to twenty mg of medication, given two or three times for day.

The dose in the case of amphetamines ( including adderall, dexedrine and dextrostat) is a half of the dose given for Ritanil. These requirements need to be closely adhered to, because they aren't influenced by age, weight or the gravity of the disorder in the individual.

Therefore, dosage will probably adjusted by the physican according to cases, if the patient is an adult, a chid or still a toddler. Different doctors may even work out different dosages for the patients.

Q. For how long must the child take the medication?

The child is expected to follow the treatment for more than just a few years, up until going into adolescence and even adulthood. Many factors however influence the length of the treatment, such as whether the patient feels any side effects on the short term of the medication, whether his condition has improved over time and if the physician thinks it would be necessary to reduce medication.

Therefore, parents can discontinue the medication which has been prescribed to their children stating that it provoques unnecessary harm to them and that the medication is no longer useful.

Q. For how many times should stimulant prescriptions be used?

Data collected from 1995 until the present has revealed that physicians have prescribed six million treatments for children, including various stimulant medications such as Ritalin or dextroamphetamine. Therefore, since the prescriptions using stimulant medication is so largely used, more studies are conducted at the time to test their feasibility.

Q. What is the tendency for stimulant increase?

Use of stimulants has increased a lot in the US for the last two deceases. The increase in use of methylphenidate since 1990 until 1995 is of 2.5 times. The increase relates tp a growing number of adolescents, girls and boys suffering from the disorder.

If you are interested in natural remedies that avoid the use of medication, Focus Formula for ADHD has been helpful for many families. This herbal treatment helps calm hyperactivity and improve concentration.