New treatment options for children...( Neurologists have shown that many child...),Health

Neurologists have shown that many children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who have long been denied the medication most commonly used by doctors, methylphenidate (MPH, also known as Ritalin), can be treated effectively with it. The study in the February 26 issue of Neurology, published by the American Academy of Neurology, also puts forth the idea that a combination of medicines works best for many children with ADHD.

This is an effective medicine that doctors have been told for decades not to use in children with tics, such as children with Tourettes syndrome, says lead author Roger Kurlan, M.D., a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Theres even a warning in the Physicians Desk Reference, and for 40 years physicians have avoided treating children with ADHD and tics with Ritalin because of a fear that the tics would worsen. But the warning was based on slim evidence and had never really been checked out thoroughly.

The study was conducted by the Tourettes Syndrome Study Group, a collection of physicians and nurses from 15 institutions who focus on developing and testing new treatments for the disorder. About one-third of children diagnosed with ADHD also have a tic disorder like Tourettes.

Since about half of children with tics also have ADHD, doctors like Kurlan who specialize in treating children with Tourettes long encountered difficulty treating many of their patients. Many specialists had found MPH effective at treating children with tics and ADHD, despite the conventional thinking. So the Tourettes study group proposed to settle the question in a study which the National Institutes of Health agreed to fund.

Doctors at 12 hospitals and medical centers around North America studied 136 children ages 7-14 who had both ADHD and tics. Children received either MPH, clonidine, both, or neither; doctors, nurses, parents, teachers and children did not know which children received which tre
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Contact: Tom Rickey
trickey@admin.rochester.edu
585-275-7954
University of Rochester Medical Center
25-Feb-2002

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