A new study has welcome news for parents of children who suffer from Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The study which took place over a three year period has found that whether children are treated with medication such as Ritalin or behaviour therapy or both, they all improve over time at an equitable rate.
According to Peter Jensen, director of the Center for the Advancement of Children's Mental Health at Columbia University, the lead author of the study, three years after treatment for ADHD was initiated, children continue to experience improvement in their symptoms regardless of which treatment was used and were doing significantly better than at the start of the study.
Any advantage the medication provided initially suggesting it was superior to other treatments appeared to wear off and the researchers say some improvement in symptoms may occur naturally, independently of treatment.
The study is called the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (MTA), and first enrolled children with ADHD when they were ages 7 to 10; these reports are the third follow-up on the study.
As many as 2 million children in the U.S. are diagnosed with ADHD, a condition in which children have trouble focusing on tasks, sitting still, and paying attention and it interferes with the learning process.
The original study, which continued for 14 months, evaluated four approaches: behaviour therapy, medication, medication plus behaviour therapy, or routine community care.
After the 14 months, families could choose from treatments available in their communities, and the researchers do acknowledge that the original groups may have added or eliminated the treatments they first took in the study.
The report is a follow-up to the largest long-term controlled research done on those with ADHD and involved 579 children who were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups:- stimulant medication, such as Ritalin; an intensive behaviour therapy program; a combination of medication and behaviour therapy or whatever care their parents could find.