ADHD News and Treatment
Medical Minute: Vision Revision for ADHD Diagnosis
Once she starts reading, Katy Kluck can’t stop. So mom was puzzled when Katy started struggling with schoolwork.
“I couldn’t really focus because there were so many questions on the page,” says Katy.
“Once they heard that Katy could not focus immediately they said well, she has an A.D.D. problem,” says Katy’s mom, Ann Kluck.
Afraid of using meds, Ann did some research, which led her to an optometrist.
“One of the questions we ask parents is to decide whether it’s an organic attention problem or maybe more related to a vision problem,” says Daniel Press, OD., a developmental optometrist.
Exams found Katy’s eyes didn’t work well together, the words moved and turned blurry.
She kicked-off eight months of vision therapy. It’s a workout using computer gaming, training the brain to use both eyes together.
“One of the eyes sees the red target, the other one only sees the blue target so if you’re going to do this well you have to use both eyes well together,” says Daniel.
The American Academy of Pediatrics vision experts say 60-percent of kids labeled as problem learners, actually suffer from undetected vision problems. But some have doubts. The American Academy of Pediatrics says vision therapy may give parents and teachers a false sense of security that a child’s problems are being addressed.
Caroline Moore says vision therapy worked for her. “My grades skyrocketed back up!”
So did Katy’s. “It makes me feel good because I’m getting good grades.”
Lack of proof or legit solution? One mom found the answer in her child’s eyes.
Do homeopathic treatments for ADHD work?
Every weekday, a CNNHealth expert doctor answers a viewer question. On Tuesdays, it’s Dr. Charles Raison, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, and an expert in the mind-body connection for health.
Question asked by Suzie
Our 8-year-old daughter was diagnosed with ADHD at age 6. We have tried several medications, stimulants and nonstimulants, and have not gotten good results. We are now looking at homeopathic treatment for our daughter, but the question is: Does it really work?
The short answer to your question appears to be no. Let’s talk about this short answer before we talk a little about a longer and more complicated answer.
Compared with studies in many thousands of children and adolescents – including studies lasting many years – as of 2007, the effects of homeopathy for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, had been studied with even minimal rigor in only four studies.
When researchers combined data from the 168 young people in these four studies, they found no evidence that homeopathic treatments were of benefit for ADHD. So at this point in time I think we have to conclude that by the standards used to assess Food and Drug Administration-approved medications, homeopathic treatments don’t work.
OK, that’s the short answer. The longer answer is that homeopathic approaches do not appear to work better than placebo treatments, so they don’t work in any specific way for ADHD. But placebos can have powerful beneficial effects for many health conditions, ranging from depression and chronic pain to Parkinson’s disease. Recent studies show clearly that when people believe they are taking an active medication but are receiving a placebo their brains activate in much the same way – but to a lesser degree – as their brains do in response to the active medication.
The internet is chock-full of treatments promising the sun, moon and stars for all sorts of medical problems. The vast majority of these have never been adequately tested.
Look for the last few lines of small print underneath all the gigantic claims made on internet sites for homeopathic ADHD treatments. You’ll always see something along the lines of “claims have not been scientifically established” or “treatment is not intended for medical purposes.” In psychiatry, we often say that a new medication works best just before it is approved for use, because its sheen has not been rubbed off by clinical experience.
Although homeopathy doesn’t work in formal studies, it does not mean it might not help certain individuals, and your child might be one of them. But I would strongly suggest that if multiple ADHD medications have failed it is possible that your daughter has been misdiagnosed and is being given medications that work for a condition she doesn’t have.
Before doing anything in terms of alternative treatments, I’d make sure you got your daughter the best mental health assessment you can find to make sure that she doesn’t have a condition such as bipolar disorder, which can often resemble ADHD in childhood but requires different types of medication.
Letter: ADHD detail
Regarding the prescription of drugs to children for ADHD which attracts the attention of health services (your report, 22 December) it is interesting to note that a strong motivator for parents to push for diagnosis and treatment is the enhancement of benefit payments they receive.
An appraisal of the proportion of families reliant on state benefit whose children are diagnosed in comparison with those not receiving benefit would be enlightening.
Parenting support in early years helps but there do appear to be parents out there who promote challenging behaviour in their children with the intention of obtaining increased benefit income from disability living allowance.
Perhaps someone has researched this or has figures to support or refute this observation.