Psychotropic Drug Prescriptions for Small Children Leveling Off

Following the huge boom of the '90s

The use of psychotropic prescription medications to treat mental health disorders in very young children is stabilizing, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics.

Psychotropic medications that are commonly prescribed to treat ADHD, mood disorders and other mental health problems include both typical and atypical antipsychotics, antidepressants, antianxiety agents, stimulants and mood stabilizers.

Few of these medications have been approved for use at preschool age by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

However, the researchers from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center say previous studies have shown that psychotropic prescriptions increased two to threefold for preschool children between 1991 and 2001.

Comments

[Crimson Legacy]

I think that just like Asperger's Syndrome (a type of autism), ADHD is just finally being widely learned about by the general public. Sure, there are a lot of parents getting their kid in elementary school (too young in my opinion to NEED ADHD drugs to function) written up for a daily dose of Ritalin or Adderall and too few doctors feel the need to do any kind of second-guessing, but that doesn't mean that ADHD or Asperger's are made-up disorders. I think if you do some looking into on ADHD forums, many people (like myself) think Adderall or similar medications especially have greatly improved their lives where they can actually finish work at their job or at home. For many school-kids with ADHD, they are as brilliant if not more intelligent than their peers, but they fail at everything from studying to remembering homework or projects no matter how hard they try to do them. I'm not saying drugs are a magic bullet, but they certainly do improve millions of people's lives every day in this country.