AD/HD-treatments

Does ADHD treatment enable long-term academic success? (Yes, especially when pharmacological and non-pharma treatments are combined)

by

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.

A study pub­lished recent­ly in the Jour­nal of Atten­tion Dis­or­ders, Long-term out­comes of ADHD: Aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment and aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance, rep­re­sents the most com­pre­hen­sive effort to date to iden­ti­fy and syn­the­size research relat­ed to this impor­tant question.

The Study:

The authors began by iden­ti­fy­ing all stud­ies pub­lished between 1980 and 2012 that report­ed long-term aca­d­e­m­ic out­comes for youth with ADHD; this was defined as at least 2 years beyond an ini­tial base­line assess­ment. All stud­ies includ­ed a com­par­i­son group — either a nor­ma­tive com­par­i­son sam­ple or youth with ADHD who were not treat­ed — or a com­par­i­son mea­sure, e.g., a pre-treat­ment base­line mea­sure of aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment to which sub­se­quent achieve­ment could be com­pared. [Read more…] about Does ADHD treat­ment enable long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess? (Yes, espe­cial­ly when phar­ma­co­log­i­cal and non-phar­ma treat­ments are combined)

Survey of 2500 families finds what ADHD treatments seem to work/ not work as applied in the real world

by

Cred­it: CDC Vital Signs

While care­ful­ly con­trolled clin­i­cal tri­als are essen­tial for estab­lish­ing sci­en­tif­ic sup­port for dif­fer­ent ADHD treat­ments, it is also impor­tant to exam­ine how par­ents feel about the treat­ments they actu­al­ly select for their child.

How par­ents feel about ADHD treat­ments they have tried for their child pro­vides an impor­tant com­ple­ment to pub­lished clin­i­cal tri­als data, and can also help guide par­ents’ treat­ment choic­es. [Read more…] about Sur­vey of 2500 fam­i­lies finds what ADHD treat­ments seem to work/ not work as applied in the real world

What should come first to treat ADHD in children, behavior therapy or stimulant medication?

by

Stim­u­lant med­ica­tion treat­ment and behav­ior ther­a­py are cur­rent­ly the two child ADHD treat­ments with the strongest research sup­port. How­ev­er, when par­ents begin treat­ment for their child, or when pro­fes­sion­als are ini­ti­at­ing treat­ment with a new client, there is no research to guide the deci­sion of which approach to begin with.

Is it bet­ter to start with med­ica­tion treat­ment and add behav­ior ther­a­py if need­ed? Or, should behav­ior ther­a­py come first with med­ica­tion added if the child’s response is not suf­fi­cient? Or, is it always prefer­able to begin with com­bined treat­ment? [Read more…] about What should come first to treat ADHD in chil­dren, behav­ior ther­a­py or stim­u­lant medication?

Initial study finds promise and limitations in using virtual reality (VR) to treat ADHD

by

___

Giv­en the lim­i­ta­tions of exist­ing evi­dence-based ADHD treat­ments, i.e., stim­u­lant med­ica­tion and behav­ior ther­a­py — research on nov­el inter­ven­tion approach­es con­tin­ues to be important.

Cog­ni­tive train­ing is one such approach that has been sug­gest­ed as a poten­tial adjunct or even replace­ment for med­ica­tion treat­ment. While cog­ni­tive train­ing takes dif­fer­ent forms, e.g., com­put­er­ized atten­tion train­ing, work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing, the basic idea is that by repeat­ed­ly prac­tic­ing cog­ni­tive tasks relat­ed to atten­tion, one’s abil­i­ty to focus and attend will improve. In oth­er words, [Read more…] about Ini­tial study finds promise and lim­i­ta­tions in using vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) to treat ADHD

Survey: Parents view Exercise as more effective than Prescription Medications to treat children with ADHD

by

Con­sid­er how research sup­port for ADHD treat­ments are typ­i­cal­ly estab­lished. The ‘gold-stan­dard’ approach would be a ran­dom­ized-con­trolled tri­al in which chil­dren with ADHD are ran­dom­ly assigned to the treat­ment or con­trol group. The treat­ment, what­ev­er it hap­pens to be, would be care­ful­ly imple­ment­ed in a research-based pro­to­col. If pos­si­ble [Read more…] about Sur­vey: Par­ents view Exer­cise as more effec­tive than Pre­scrip­tion Med­ica­tions to treat chil­dren with ADHD

Now available — Online Course: How to Navigate Conventional and Complementary ADHD Treatments for Healthy Brain Development

by

ADHDTreatments_courseoutlineIn order to suc­cess­ful­ly pro­mote children’s healthy brain devel­op­ment, every par­ent whose child has been diag­nosed with ADHD should learn how to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly nav­i­gate and mon­i­tor the range of poten­tial ADHD treat­ments based on the lat­est sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence. This course aims at pro­vid­ing the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion, frame­works and toolk­its to make well-informed deci­sions, in con­junc­tion with pro­fes­sion­al advice, about med­ica­tion, behav­ioral ther­a­py, exer­cise, neu­ro­feed­back, work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing, med­i­ta­tion, diet and supplements.

By the end of this 6‑hour online, self-paced course par­tic­i­pants will have gained the under­stand­ing and infor­ma­tion required to nav­i­gate, pri­or­i­tize and mon­i­tor ADHD treat­ments, both con­ven­tion­al and com­ple­men­tary, to max­i­mize short-term and long-term healthy brain devel­op­ment for chil­dren with ADHD. Click HERE to learn more and pur­chase access (20%-off dis­count code: SB20)