Love is important ‘medication’ for ADHD, Providence Journal

After talking with Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Katherine Ellison about her highly praised “Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention,” it became apparent — having a child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can be like living with a hummingbird — an energetic, continually moving target. For the parents and siblings of the child who so constantly buzzes around, one needs a healthy dose of humor and patience, and, according to a recent medical report — medication as well. But the medical reports noted in Brown University’s Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology update point out a benefit and a matter for potential concern.
 
The benefit was noted in a recent study in Iceland in which children who received medication between grades 4 and 7 were found to have “a reduced risk of academic decline.”
 
The Food and Drug Administration has found a 46 percent increase in ADHD medication use between 2002 — and 2010. While evidence points out the benefits, studies have shown that parents “are deeply ambivalent about medical treatment.”
 
In talks with Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a child and adult psychiatrist noted internationally as an ADHD specialist, he said that, “Love is our most powerful and under-prescribed medication. It’s free and infinite in supply, and we most definitely ought to prescribe it more often.”
 
Nonetheless, in speaking about Ritalin, he said: “We may go wrong in how we use it, when we over-prescribe it, or when we use it as a substitute for love, guidance, and the human connection. As long as we use it properly, it remains one of our most proven and valuable of all medications.”
 
Dr. Hallowell has a unique perspective on ADHD and goes to great lengths to present medical facts to children and families while creating a uniquely understandable and positive way of describing ADHD
 
He said: “I tell children that they are lucky to have a race car for a brain, a Ferrari engine. I tell them that they have the potential to grow into champions by working to achieve greatness in their lives. I explain that billionaires, CEO’s, Pulitzer Prize winners and professional athletes with ADHD, whom I’ve treated over the years, have succeeded.
 
“But I also tell them that they face one problem — their race car brain has bicycle brakes. And lucky for them — I am a brake specialist. One of the many tools I can use to strengthen brakes is medication. But medication is only a start; we will have to do much more. However, they should see medication as a companion in that effort.”
 
Dr. Hallowell’s goal is to see parents and children leave his office feeling hopeful. Instead of feeling as if they have a problem, he wants children to leave his office feeling like “champions in the making.”
 
Katherine Ellison, in earlier interviews, said she found that the best way she learned to adjust to her particular family’s dynamic was to think of it as a challenge to evolve; that is, become more patient and forgiving, to take things less personally, and to focus on the positive. A former foreign correspondent — taken hostage by Mexican peasants, arrested by Cuban police, tear-gassed in Panama, and chased by killer bees — she came to believe that the challenge of arriving ata reasonably normal family life was one of her toughest assignments.
Please see Love is important ‘medication’ for ADHD on Page D2 of Monday, November 05, 2012 issue of The Providence Journal
Rita Watson, MPH, ( www.ritawatson.com  ) is a regular contributor to the Journal and a relationship columnist for our “All About You” section.