Word: adhd
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...report released Tuesday by the National Institute of Mental Health concludes that not only is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder real, it's treatable - but only if you take your medicine. Coming down largely on the "nature" side of nature vs. nurture, the NIMH says that ADHD is most effectively combated through a combination of therapy and medication, but that the medication is the more important portion of the equation...
Critics say the ADHD "epidemic" - which, depending on who's giving the diagnosis, can cover nearly any child who's ever nodded off in class or can't stand waiting in lines - is merely a social byproduct of modernity: Children raised on cable television and video games have short attention spans. But by siding with medicine as the treatment of choice, the NIMH says that there's a clear biological component that can be chemically modified. That's not to say that every time a kid acts up we should drug him. "This is not just handing out Ritalin...
...head--in a car or bike accident, for instance--there may be an unexpected consequence: the onset of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. A small study shows that within a year of injury, 20% of kids develop the behavioral problem. Interestingly, researchers found that all the children with ADHD had developed lesions in the same area, deep in the right side of the brain...
...look into the case of a troubled girl who was still a freshman at 17. The girl admitted she smoked pot as a constant habit but did not understand why she craved it so much. A psychological evaluation found the girl was suffering from clinical depression as well as ADHD. She was prescribed an antidepressant, which had striking results. It not only elevated her mood and helped her focus but also reduced her desire for pot and tobacco...
Susan Dubuque of Richmond, Va., is convinced of the benefits. Her son Nick went through "seven years of testing hell." At seven, ADHD was diagnosed and he was put on Ritalin. "When he was 10 years old, he didn't want a birthday party because he just couldn't deal with it," she recalls. Then, his mother says, Nick "bottomed out and became suicidal, and one day I found him in a closet with a toy gun pointed at his head, and he said, 'If this was real, I'd use it.'" The next day she saw a psychologist...