ADHD

From The Concordian: On October 30th, Dr. Joel Paris, a professor of psychiatry at McGill University, gave a lecture about the dangers and consequences of...

Historical, current, and potential future complexities of cognitive assessment; a longstanding, controversial fixture in schools throughout the United States.

FDA regulators have updated the warning labels on methylphenidate products such as Ritalin, Focalin and Concerta to reflect reports of prolonged, painful erections (priapism)...

Pilot study finds school-based humanistic counseling reduces emotional symptoms in students.

From National Post: Antipsychotic drugs are increasingly being prescribed to children as young as two for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, aggression and behavior problems. A...

PsychCentral presents a new study from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that found that foster care children are three times more likely than other children on Medicaid to receive a diagnosis of ADHD. Overall, more than one in four children in foster care receive such a diagnosis. CDC statistician Melissa Danielson interpreted these results as revealing a “substantial need” for more medical and behavioral services for kids in foster care.

Physician Daniela Drake writes on Salon that "When we rush to prescribe boatloads of Adderall, we miss lesser-known disorders holding kids back. I know...

Afraid of facing me in court, the state gave up entirely and a young man was freed from involuntary ECT treatment. It was a total victory. Meanwhile, the Psychiatric Industrial Complex is finding more subtle ways to inflict electrical energy upon the brains of children labeled with ADHD.

Revealing the false information provided about psychiatry should cause any thinking person, patient, thought-leader or politician to wonder: “how many otherwise normal or potentially curable people over the last half century of psych drug propaganda have actually been mis-labeled as mentally ill (and then mis-treated) and sent down the convoluted path of therapeutic misadventures – heading toward oblivion?”

On Sunday, the front page of the UK’s Independent ran a story entitled, “Thousands of children are being medicated for ADHD – when the condition may not even exist.” Fiction novelist and author of the upcoming “Concentr8,” William Sutcliffe, writes, “The pharmaceutical/medical industry teaches us that whatever the problem, a pill is the answer.” “This notion is becoming so all-powerful, and so locked together with a pressurised, exam-centred, conformist educational system, that every parent who has a misbehaving or inattentive child may now find themselves pushed towards a diagnosis of ADHD.”

A former pharma executive has broken ranks with the industry in a new book by reporting how multiple psychiatrists, schools, and his desperate hopes pressed him to allow higher and higher doses of antipsychotic medications. The result: his 15-year-old son's death from Seroquel.

A new BBC documentary, "Health," investigates the deals struck between health professionals and pharmaceutical companies. The documentary includes an interview with Dr. James Davies, co-founder of the...

In a featured article for Psychiatric Services, psychiatrists from Dartmouth raise the alarm on the increasing numbers of children prescribed dangerous antipsychotic drugs. Despite the fact that data on the safety of long-term use of these drugs in this vulnerable population “do not exist,” the rate of children and adolescents being prescribed antipsychotic drugs have continued to increase over the past fifteen years.

A number of news outlets have been reporting on a review of modafinil, labeled the new "smart drug," this week. The review in question summarized the recent literature on the drug but others have claimed that the authors underestimated potential side-effects.

ADHD behaviors were linked to the presence of both high levels of pollutants and persistent economic deprivation at birth and through childhood.

The Charlotte Observer announces the September arrival of New York Times writer Allen Schwarz's “ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of An...

The New York Times reports on a new study finding that ‘ADHD’ is the most common diagnosis for children under 12 who die by...

-Psychiatrists Ilina Singh and Simon Wessely ask if it would be ethically right to treat a child for ADHD, even if it were possible to definitively identify a biomarker for ADHD.

A paper in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy chronicles the history of MiA blogger Gretchen LeFever Watson's effort to improve ADHD treatment in southeastern...

A new study found that children taking ADHD drugs had, on average, lower bone density than their peers. This included children on common stimulants...

Boston College Psychologist Peter Gray writes for Aeon about the impact of the gradual erosion of children’s’ play in the United States. “Over the...

Bloomberg reports that "The European debut of a pill to treat children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder faces a major hurdle: convincing people the...

The increasing use of psychiatric medications in toddlers, particularly of stimulants for ADHD, is explored by journalist Josiah Hesse on Substance.com. Looking into possible...

The alleged “Prom day” killer, Christopher Plaskon, is a snap shot of the future result of Connecticut’s increased mental health services. The 17 year-old's defense apparently will be that his “mental health” caused his murderous actions – not the dangerous psychiatric drugs he obviously has been taking for some time.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has become the province of geneticists, neuropsychologists, and physicians. The prevailing view is that ADHD behaviors are caused by a neurobiological delay and that treatment must include medication and stringent management. While this general attitude may continue to prosper, there is increasing concern that we are proposing the existence of a medical problem when there are no biological markers or dysfunctions that reliably correspond with the behavioral criteria. It is vital that we more closely examine traditional beliefs about ADHD and review the shortcomings of commonly used treatments.