![]() Nineteen out of 20 people who come to me for help for themselves or their child adamantly oppose the use of medication. But have you ever met anyone who actually believes that? I haven’t. This is cited so often that is has become an accepted truth. “Second, the large-scale medication of children feeds into a societal view that all of life’s problems can be solved with a pill and gives millions of children the impression that there is something inherently defective in them.” When these medications work, they do not solve the problem, any more than eyeglasses solve the problem of myopia. Sroufe says that “some smaller number may benefit from short-term drug treatment,” in fact, 80 percent of individuals with ADHD who try medication benefit. We offer it as one tool that can help, but always as part of a comprehensive treatment plan that also includes education of parent, child, and teacher lifestyle modification, including sleep, diet, exercise, meditation and positive human interactions coaching on how to better organize life and ongoing follow-up to monitor progress and offer encouragement and various specific tips on managing life with ADHD. ![]() Who said there is a single solution? No enlightened clinician offers medication as the only solution. While some smaller number may benefit from short-term drug treatment, large-scale, long-term treatment for millions of children is not the answer.” “First, there will never be a single solution for all children with learning and behavior problems. Let me quote and respond to several paragraphs from his article: I take issue with his scare tactics and wrong-headed assumptions. Sroufe’s article, I agree with much of what he had to say. While I wince at the inflammatory rhetoric of Dr. I know this condition, and its various treatments, inside and out. I’ve co-written, with John Ratey, the best-selling books on ADHD. I was on the Harvard Medical School faculty for 20 years, and I still see patients in my offices in Sudbury, Massachuseets and New York City every day. I’m an M.D., a child and adult psychiatrist who’s been treating children who have what we call ADHD for over 30 years. ![]() The end result? Giving up on a class of medications with enormous potential benefits. ( The New York Times, January 29, 2012).Īs is usually the case when the use of stimulant medications like Ritalin makes it into mainstream media, the article pushes emotional hot buttons that scares the daylights out of uninformed readers and leads them to avoid using such medications or allowing their children to. I take issue with the opinion piece “ Ritalin Gone Wrong,” written by Alan Sroufe, Ph.D. ![]()
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