Researchers from the University of Nottingham in the UK have just concluded a study thats shows that using "behaviorial rewards" may be a suitable alternative to use with all but the worst ADHD cases in children. They found in the study by having parents reward the child "strongly positive" (with treats, extra activites, etc.) in a very "prompt" movement, the child was less likely to show impulsive behaviour which proved, to them, that this "positive reward" method affected the brain in the same way that medicine does. The also had parents reward "negative" behavior with very strong negative and grave consquences, finding that the children were much less likely to be impulsive or behave badly when given these "negative" rewards.
As a former child who was put on Ritalin for "ADHD", I think this is fantastic news. For me, the consequences of using Ritalin were overwhelmingly negative and overshadowed any good effect that it was able to produce. I would take Ritalin in the morning before going to school and whilst I was at school, the drug would most certainly help me "concentrate" and "calm down" but would have disastorous side effects when I came home at the end of the school day. I would have no appetite and would constantly be tired and unable to concentrate on anything for any appreciable amount of time. In short, I felt like a zombie and this really effected my homework getting done on time and ultimately effected my overall academic performance more than it helped it. After a two years or so, my family decided to take me off the medicine and allow me to learn to control my hyper-activity on my own terms. Once i learned how to effectively control my "resltessness" and lack on concentration without drugs, I did much better in school and was able to have a "life" after school rather than hardly being able to function.
I hope this research leads the way in getting children off of these potentially harmful drugs and allows them to learn to control themselves in a manner that they, themselves can live with. Being medicated for my entire life, day in and day out, is not my idea of a good life and doubt it is acceptable to most others as well. I also hope that these kind of "natural" treatments for things such as hyper-activity will force doctors to stop prescribing drugs as a first course of action and rather, put more responsibility on the parents to teach their kids ways to control their own behavior. Unfortunately, I think these kind of drugs have been horrendiously overprescribed by doctors for kids who perhaps just needed more attention and "work" with their parents which were seemingly too busy to worry about it.
Like all other research, there are certainly flaws and there is no way for these kind of "behavioral" fixes to work for 100% of the people afflicted by a disorder such as ADHD but I believe it will give more hope for less severe cases.
My final question to pose is, what do you think the drug companies that manufacturer these drugs (such as Ritalin, Aderol, etc.) are going to think when doctors prescribe their product less and less. To me, I think they would be very unhappy as this cuts into their profits.
What do you think?
More information @:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8625741.stm
http://webhost.bridgew.edu/jhuber/readings/ritalin_and_adhd_recent_developments.html
-Chris Laatsch
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This study is awesome; it suggests that we can help individuals that suffer from ADHD without prescribing them jack! All these drugs are, are legalized amphetamines. Even if they are helping the patient with ADHD, they are making the patient grow dependant on them. I have a brother in-law that has been diagnosed with ADHD and is extremely dependant on Aderol. They cost him lots of money and don’t really help him go anywhere in life. So not only do they cause issues with the people they are prescribed to, they cause issues with the people who take then illegally. They should just take the drug off the market and stop trying to push pills down our throats to solve our problems.
ReplyDeleteI took ritalin also, and it created very bad emotions for a 12 year old. I was always sad and upset at the world, i attempted suicide at 12, and when i stopped the medication, i was the happiest kid in the world, but very very hyper. I learned to control it with cutting out back round noise, such as listeniing to my ipod while doing math work so i dont listen to conversations or pay attention to someone sniffling because of a cold that is right next to me.
ReplyDeleteI believe parents have to make more efforts to help children stop taking drugs. The reward suggestionwill be a good idea. Parents' need ti live their lifes as role models to cildren. More education for children on how to avoid drugs, as well as the effects of drugs is also suggested.
ReplyDelete