A recent study just released shows that one in five high school age boys in the U.S. have been diagnosed ADHD ( or just ADD ) and are being treated with psychostimulant medications. This is a dramatic increase over the last decade and easily a twenty fold increase in the last thirty years. Why this dramatic change? Are we just being more astute in our diagnosis and more attentive to teenage boys, or is this disorder actually on the rise? Perhaps other forces are at work.
ADHD is defined by distractibility, poor focus, irritability and inability to complete tasks. This is normal for adolescent boys and, no, it has no changed in the last thirty years, or the last 20o,000, for that matter. Increased brain functions with high testosterone and delayed frontal lobe development in the cause, combined with grandiosity, poor impulse control and lack of real like experience. Limit setting and mentoring to channel teenage drives is the time honored way to deal with this normal life phase. So, again, why so many psychostimulants prescribed?
Only one in ten households have a working father and a stay at home mom. The teachers are stressed and can’t mentor. Few kids have a school/play/sports ballance to give outlets to drives and energy. Worse, most psychostimulants are prescribed by family practitioners and pediatricians, not psychiatrists. Individual psychotherapy, not meds, is the standard and rarely used, do to practical restraints. The big pharma industry makes millions on these drugs! And, kids who take them are more likely to suffer shorter stature from premature closure of the growth plates, drug addiction as adults and sociopathic behavior. Real costs.
ADHD is a real disorder and psychostimulants are the treatment of choice. The true rate is one in twenty to one in one hundred. Adolescents need structure, nurturing and mentoring. They need actively involved parents! Don’t take the costly short cut.