More teachers and school administrators should familiarize themselves with Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder (OCD), an anxiety-causing disease that affects between 1% and 2% of all children.

Dr. Kathleen Rupertus, a specialist in OCD, spoke before the OCD National Conference this week in Dallas, Texas. She said that the disease is often not diagnosed until adulthood. Persons with the disorder often wash their hands hundreds of times a day, chant to themselves, count things, and otherwise engage in repetitive behaviors. Unless a parent informs his child's teacher about the condition, it usually goes undetected and causes the child undue suffering. For example, children with OCD may constantly rearrange their pens or do their homework thirty times over. They usually have trouble making friends.

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Labels: research, anxiety, disorder

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The use of medicine to treat Attention Deficit Disorder tripled between 1993 and 2003. The United States accounted for 83% of the increase. However, researchers noted that France, Sweden, Korea and Japan showed increases in ADHD drug use among children ages five to nineteen years, and Canada and Australia had heavier use than predicted. Overall, there was a 900% increase in spending on ADHD drugs such as Ritalin.

Richard Scheffler, who led the study, said that ADHD could become the world's leading childhood disorder treatable by drugs.

One in 25 American children now takes such medications.

Labels: medications, treatment, disorder

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