Study finds combined pharma + non-pharma treatment most beneficial to help youth with ADHD address long-term academic difficulties

__ Aca­d­e­m­ic dif­fi­cul­ties are one of the most impor­tant adverse con­se­quences of ADHD, and they fre­quent­ly con­tribute to par­ents’ deci­sion to seek treat­ment for their child. Whether treat­ment con­sis­tent­ly yields a pos­i­tive impact on long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess is thus an impor­tant issue; how­ev­er, the answer to this ques­tion has been some­what controversial.

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Study: Having ADHD costs $1.1 million in lower lifetime earnings, even when “treated”

 Rel­a­tive­ly few stud­ies have exam­ined the impact of child­hood ADHD on long-term finan­cial out­comes, even though becom­ing self-sup­­port­ing and attain­ing finan­cial inde­pen­dence is an impor­tant devel­op­men­tal task. An espe­cial­ly com­pre­hen­sive look at this issue is pro­vid­ed in a study by Pel­ham et al pub­lished recent­ly in the Jour­nal of Con­sult­ing and Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gy. The Study: Participants…

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FDA clears Trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS) as ADHD treatment

_____ Although stim­u­lant med­ica­tions are gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered to be a safe and effec­tive treat­ment for ADHD, not all chil­dren ben­e­fit from this approach. Many par­ents are reluc­tant to begin their child on med­ica­tion and some chil­dren expe­ri­ence unac­cept­able side affects. For these rea­sons, devel­op­ing safe and effec­tive alter­na­tive treat­ments for ADHD remains a pri­or­i­ty. Trigeminal…

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Lack of sleep seen to cause sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) in adolescents with attention deficits

___ It is esti­mat­ed that up to 75% of youth with ADHD have sleep prob­lems. And, exper­i­men­tal stud­ies that manip­u­late sleep quan­ti­ty have demon­strat­ed a causal link between sleep and ADHD behav­ior in chil­dren. How­ev­er, there has been no pri­or work in which sleep dura­tion has been manip­u­lat­ed in ado­les­cents diag­nosed with ADHD. 

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Study: Brief sleep intervention provides enduring benefits to children with ADHD

Sleep prob­lems are com­mon in chil­dren with ADHD, are more per­sis­tent than in the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, and often exac­er­bate dif­fi­cul­ties asso­ci­at­ed with ADHD. For exam­ple, poor sleep can enhance dif­fi­cul­ties with atten­tion and con­cen­tra­tion that most youth with ADHD expe­ri­ence. Research has shown that brief sleep inter­ven­tions can improve sleep in youth with­out ADHD who…

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If you or your kid have ADHD, do have a treatment monitoring plan in place for the New Year?

When a child is diag­nosed with ADHD, par­ents con­front the dif­fi­cult deci­sion about which treatment(s) to pur­sue to best help their child suc­ceed. While decid­ing on an ini­tial treat­ment plan is impor­tant, equal­ly impor­tant is estab­lish­ing a plan to mon­i­tor how well that treat­ment is work­ing on a sus­tained basis, regard­less of what spe­cif­ic treatment(s)…

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