ADHD Disorder Guidelines

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychiatric Association have created two new guides for parents of children or teenagers that have been diagnosed with ADHD Attention Deficit Disorder. Given the vast amount of materials available to parents, confusion instead of enlightenment can often result. “When I needed information, few people had heard of ADHD and little information was available to help parents…Now families are faced with just the opposite problem. There’s an overwhelming and confusing array of information and misinformation on the Internet, on television and in the print media.” Experts estimate that almost 2 million children in the United States — or about 3 percent to 5 percent of young children in the country — have ADHD.” And their parents have one prevailing concern - medication. Is it really necessary? If so, how long will their kids have to depend on it. And does that medication set their teen up for teen drug abuse?

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“It’s clear to us [that] parents have a lot of questions about disorders, treatments and medications and that’s what led us to develop this particular guide,” Fassler said. “Most children with ADHD are first seen and evaluated with a primary-care physician. But the primary-care physician is often totally overwhelmed with the shortage of time they have to provide adequate education and background information to parents at the time of a visit…”This tool will assist the providers.” “I think it’s just a very helpful thing to be used in every psychiatrist’s office who’s going to be seeing kids with ADHD…” (Unknown source) By Ann Walker