Ninety per cent of children with ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) are not being helped by medication. The drugs do not improve symptoms such as hyperactivity and inattention, and the children may as well not be taking them, new research has found.
Nine out of 10 children with moderate to severe ADHD saw no improvement in their symptoms, even six years after diagnosis and after taking medication. Symptoms were the same in children taking drugs and those who weren’t.
Researchers from the John Hopkins Children’s Centre made the discovery after they tracked the progress of 186 children who had been diagnosed with ADHD between the ages of three and five. Two-thirds had been put on medication, and after six years, 62 per cent still had ‘clinically-significant’ hyperactivity and impulsivity compared to 58 per cent of those not taking drugs, and 65 per cent in the medication group still suffered from severe inattention compared to 62 per cent in the non-drug group.
(Source: Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2013; doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2012.12.007).
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