Everyone must do their part and daily exercise, healthy eating AND copious amounts of counseling are needed in order for the medication to successfully do its job.I remember reading a research document several years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association that revealed a dramatiac increase in the use of psychotropic medications for children between the ages of 2 and 4 years. At the time, I thought it might be justified since the Surgeon General's report estimated that of the 70,000,000 children and adolescents in the U.S., between 6 to 9 million had a serious emotional disturbance.
The increase in psycholtropic drug prescriptions for children really burgeoned between 1987 through 1996; such drug prescriptions for teens nearly tripled to more than 2 million children (2003 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry). Similarly, visits by children, ages 12 to 17, for mental health treatment or counseling increased by almost 900,000 visits from 2002 through 2004 (federal government survey).
Wow! With such burgeoning numbers, that would create lots of patients for the mere 7,500 child psychiatrists that are currently practicing in the United
States. Perhaps, more should be trained, beyond the 300 new child and adolescent psychiatrists who complete training each year. Just think if we had more of them and they could personally counsel each child much, much, more. Not their fault...but many are spread far too thin because of a large caseload.The What, When, and How of Taking Ritalin by Dr. Lawrence Diller- an informative site:
http://www।pbs।org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/drugs/diller.हटमल
Following are two articles I cut out of the Wall Street Journal. Very thought provoking!
Treating children as young as 4 for bipolar - WSJ
Thu, 26 May 2005
A report in The Wall Street Journal should raise serious concerns about the legitimacy of psychiatric diagnosing and drug prescribing for children.Thu, 26 May 2005
The Journal reports that close to 20,000 US children are being diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, a condition that had, until recently been very rare according to responsible child psychiatrists. "The number of children diagnosed as bipolar rose 26% from 2002 to 2004, to 19,776 cases" according to patient records kept by health-care information company NDCHealth Corp. "Increased use of antipsychotic medicines, such as Seroquel and Risperdal, was a big driver of pediatric drug costs last year, according to pharmacy-benefit manager Medco Health Solutions Inc."
Yet, the Journal reports that a heated debate is brewing between two camps of powerful child psychiatrists--all of whom are proponents of psychotropic drugs. Leading child psychiatrists disagree about whether children should even have to
meet the diagnostic threshold for a diagnosis of bipolar before being prescribed some of the most powerful mind altering psychotropic drugs on the planet. Their decisions may irrevocably harm children.Bipolar disorder is a severe, disabling psychiatric condition broadly defined in the diagnostic bible of psychiatry--the DSM IV. To meet the diagnostic criteria for bipolar in adults, patients must exhibit: Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity; Decreased need for sleep; Increased or pressured speech; Flight of ideas/racing thoughts; Distractibility; Increased goal-directed activity; Risk-taking behavior--"bipolar disorder causes people to cycle between manic, euphoric highs and crushing, depressive lows that last a week or more." Presumably, a psychiatrist prescribing powerful mind-altering drugs to a patient meeting those symptoms would be justified.
The drugs prescribed for bipolar disorder are the so-called 'atypical antipsychotics'--including Risperdal (risperidone), Zyprexa (olanzapine), Seroquel (quetiapine). These drugs have not been approved for children. Neither were they approved initially for bipolar disorder in adults. These antipsychotics were at first approved only for schizophrenia--the most severe, debilitating psychiatric disorder in which psychosis, hallucinations, hearing voices, are the core symptoms, affecting 1% of the population.
Unfathomably, these powerful--and harmful--psychotropic drugs have beome blockbuster sellers, enriching Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and Bristol Myers
Squibb, while producing diabetes in more than 30% of youth. Since doctors diagnosing children disagree about the basis for diagnosing and treating children, their practice method may be legitimately characterized as child abuse with chemical restraints. Psychiatry's rather broad diagnostic criteria were established by a group of leading psychiatrists. Therefore, current efforts to lower those standards--both in terms of prevalence (quantity) and severity (quality) of the symptoms, is a radical departure from psychiatry's own standards such as they are: "A bipolar child can flip between a high and low several times a day. There also is disagreement over what constitutes the highs, with some doctors saying the manic phase in children often reveals itself as extreme rages, violence and emotional outbursts, rather than the traditional euphoria."The push by an influential group of child psychiatrists at Harvard may lie at the root of what is an epidemiological mystery: what disaster can account for the staggering number of children being diagnosed with bipolar disorder? It appears that the most radical of child psychiatrists who recommend prescribing antipsychotics for children are at Harvard. They are pressuring the profession to prescribe antipsychotics for children --even without the criteria establshed by their profession, and even in the knowledge that the risks of harm for children are irrevocable.
Parents need help from Congress to stop the abuse. Parents and healthcare public policy makers have a right to demand from state licenced medical professionals that they adhere to evidence-based medicine: what constitutes a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis in children? What constitutes a scientifically valid diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children? Clearly, it is not in a child's best interst to be exposed to powerful drugs that alter brain function on the basis of "vague" symptoms of attention derficit hyperactivity (ADHD).
How can a drug approved for a very small group of very disabled patients, become Eli Lilly's best selling drug?
How many millions of dollars has Harvard and the members of its psyciatry department received from the makers of these drugs?
The Wall Street Journal Treating Children for Bipolar Disorder; Doctors Try Powerful Drugs On Kids as Young as Age 4
CHILD PSYCHIATRY, roiled last year by revelations that antidepressants could increase children's risk of suicidal behavior, now is embroiled in another controversy: How to treat troubled children who have explosive rages and dramatic mood swings that defy conventional diagnosis.
Doctors increasingly agree that some of these children have bipolar disorder. Once thought to be exceedingly rare among children, the problem is being diagnosed more frequently and at younger ages than ever before. A small but growing group of psychiatrists say they are treating children as young as four for bipolar disorder, prescribing mood-stabilizing drugs and antipsychotics that have rarely if ever been used on patients so young.
The number of children diagnosed as bipolar rose 26% from 2002 to 2004, to 19,776 cases in a database of 113 million anonymous patient records kept by health-care information company NDCHealth Corp. Increased use of antipsychotic medicines, such as Seroquel and Risperdal, was a big driver of pediatric drug costs last year, according to pharmacy-benefit manager Medco Health Solutions Inc. 
A debate is brewing over how to diagnose and treat these children. In its classic form, bipolar disorder causes people to cycle between manic, euphoric highs and crushing, depressive lows that last a week or more. The picture in children often is muddier. A bipolar child can flip between a high and low several times a day. There also is disagreement over what constitutes the highs, with some doctors saying the manic phase in children often reveals itself as extreme rages, violence and emotional outbursts, rather than the traditional euphoria.
Making diagnosis even harder is the great overlap between the symptoms of bipolar and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Research has shown that 50% to 80% of children with bipolar also have ADHD.
"We all agree that kids with classic symptoms definitely have bipolar," says Boris Birmaher, professor of psychiatry and director of a pediatric bipolar clinic at the University of Pittsburgh.
"The controversy is over the kids with vaguer symptoms."
The debate is a key topic at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association this week in Atlanta, where two camps are airing theories about which children are actually bipolar and how to treat them. One group, led by Joseph Biederman and Janet Wozniak of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, argues that a child displaying violent outbursts and rages is likely bipolar even without classic weeklong manic symptoms that help define the disorder in adults. The opposing group is led by Barbara Geller, at Washington University in St. Louis, who believes children should display the textbook grandiose feelings or elated moods. In their practices, many pediatric doctors who treat bipolar disorder fall somewhere in between and follow the treatment guidelines for adults.
The difference between the two positions isn't just academic. Children incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar would be given powerful mood-stabilizing medications they may not need, such as lithium or Depakote, or a so-called atypical antipsychotic such as Zyprexa or Risperdal -- few of which have been tested in children and all of which carry serious side effects. Lithium can cause thyroid problems and increased thirst, while the atypical antipsychotics can cause serious weight gain.
If a bipolar diagnosis is missed, children are likely to be put on antidepressants such as Zoloft, or ADHD drugs such as Adderall, both of which can actually push bipolar children into a manic mode. Indeed, some psychiatrists believe the whole flap linking antidepressants with a heightened risk of suicide in children may be explained by the fact that these children really were bipolar and not depressed.
A number of studies are exploring the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar children. Among the research is a large, six-year study at the Washington University School of Medicine and five other sites, funded by the National Institutes of Health, that is trying to determine which medications work best in bipolar patients who are six to 15 years old. The NIH is conducting another trial that will follow 700 children ages 6 to 17 to try to map what bipolar looks like in children.
Dr. Biederman's group at Massachusetts General recently presented a small study of 39 children ages 4 to 6, which showed that those with bipolar benefited from treatment with antipsychotic drugs, though with significant side effects including increased appetite and sedation. The study was funded by the nonprofit Stanley Medical Research Institute, the NIH and the hospital itself. Dr. Biederman's group has received research funds from makers of atypical antipsychotics. He and Dr. Wozniak also consult for some drug makers.
Ann Elliott's daughter, Chloe, was given Prozac for depression when she was six years old, after a two-year history of rages, giddy spells and self-destructive behavior, including bashing her head against a bathroom sink. Within a month of starting on the drug, she became mean and manic, says Ms. Elliott, a computer programmer from Northern California. Prozac was stopped. Chloe later was diagnosed as bipolar. Now eight, she is doing well on Trileptal, a mood stabilizer, and Abilify, an antipsychotic.
Such extreme behavioral problems fall under an umbrella of symptoms called "irritability" that Dr. Biederman and Dr. Wozniak think is central to bipolar in kids. These children can have three-hour rages touched off by something as routine as being told to brush their teeth. The rest of their families walk on eggshells, never knowing what could set the children off. Dr. Wozniak says these children are bipolar, even though their symptoms differ from those seen in adults.
Dr. Geller and other psychiatrists, however, point out that "irritability" can be found in many illnesses, like depression, autism and retardation. The scientific data aren't yet convincing, she says, to show that children who have rages, but not the conventional manic symptoms, actually have bipolar disorder.
In a study funded by the NIH, Dr. Geller for four years followed 86 children whom she identified as bipolar. She identified grandiosity and elated mood as two key symptoms. Since the two symptoms aren't present in ADHD, Dr. Geller says, grandiosity and elation can distinguish the children with bipolar from those with ADHD. She concedes that current science can't give clear answers. "We need biological tests or markers," she says. However, genetic tests or brain scans are probably decades away.
Doctors say parents with such troubled children should consult with a child psychiatrist who specializes in bipolar disorder at a large academic medical center, where much of the research on bipolar children is done. The Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation Web site at www.bpkids.org also may be a helpful source.
Making a diagnosis can take months. It can involve interviews with the child, parents, teachers and siblings, and even observation of the child at school or at home. It took more than eight years for doctors to diagnose Sue Cahalan's daughter with bipolar disorder. The girl had tantrums and violent fits going back to age 4. At age 8, she stole from family and neighbors. At 10, she tried to choke her mother in an argument over the telephone. At 12, Ms. Cahalan came home to find her daughter holding a butcher knife outside the upstairs bathroom in which she had locked her two younger siblings. "The psychiatrist said he was finally ready to call it bipolar," says Ms. Cahalan, a lawyer from the Chicago area.
Her daughter was put on lithium and her condition improved. For the next few years, doctors had to tinker with her medication, but Ms. Cahalan says her daughter slowly stabilized and was able to attend high school at a residential facility and will head to college next year. "I do wonder whether things would have been different had she been diagnosed earlier," she says.
18 resources to help you decide: Should I
put my child on medications? Should I take him off meds?
