The authors of the study, which was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (and which appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), concluded that this may mean that people who have ADHD during childhood should continue to take medication for the disorder even as adults.
The study's 579 subjects were between the ages of 7 and 9 years old at the beginning of the study. For a 14-month period, the children underwent one of four treatment types (medication alone, behavioral therapy alone, or combinations of the two). The combination treatment worked the best to mitigate symptoms.
The researchers checked the children two, three, six, and eight years later. By the time they were in late adolescence, many of them had stopped taking medications for their ADHD symptoms, and these symptoms had returned.
As the summer months approach, experts advise parents not to make changes to their children's ADHD meds, or to allow their children to take a "medication vacation," especially if the children will be attending an ADHD summer camp or other organized seasonal activity.
Labels: medications, Attention_Deficit_Hyperactivity_Disorder, symptoms
Posted By: Aspen/CRC
