Doctors' Groups Offer ADHD Guide for Parents

"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," added Dr. Adelaide Robb, another member of the ADHD medication guide subcommittee and a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

But the speakers at the teleconference were careful to stress that medication is not the only treatment route.

"We always start medicine after a thorough evaluation. We start out low and go slowly," Robb said. "We are not here to medicate children into being zombies in the classroom. We are here to help them focus and pay attention so they are able to learn and able to pay attention when, as teenagers, they are in traffic, which is a big issue."

"The guide stresses that behavioral treatments are an important component and the data suggests that two treatments combined are better than any one alone," said Dr. Thomas Anders, president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. "There's a broader approach than medications only."

But the flip side of overmedication is under-treating, which can be equally harmful, the experts said.

"Half of kids with ADHD are not receiving any treatment at all," Fassler said.

Dr. Jane Ripperger-Suhler, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a psychiatrist with Scott & White Mental Health Center in Temple, Texas, said she plans on printing out the guide for patients and parents.

"The more information parents have about what's going on with their kids the better it is," she said.

More information

View the Medication Guide at ParentsMedGuide.org.

SOURCES: Jane Ripperger-Suhler, M.D., assistant professor, psychiatry and behavioral science, Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, and psychiatrist, Scott & White Mental Health Center, Temple, Texas; Oct. 2, 2007, teleconference with David Fassler, M.D., Burlington, Vt.; Adelaide Robb, M.D., child and adolescent psychiatrist, Children's National Medical Center, Washington, D.C; Read Sulik, M.D., St. Cloud, Minn.; Thomas Anders, M.D., president, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Soleil Gregg