Stimulant drugs like Ritalin that are used to treat ADHD don't improve children's symptoms long term, according to new research published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. That may come as a surprise to parents, but ADHD researchers have been arguing for the past 10 years over the findings of the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD. Called the MTA study, it is the largest study conducted to compare the benefits of medication to behavioral interventions.
This latest report from the MTA study tracked 485 children for eight years and found those still taking stimulant medication fared no better in the reduction of symptoms such as inattention and hyperactivity or in social functioning than those who hadn't. Most of the children who had taken medication for the first 14 months were no longer taking it. This, the researchers wrote, raises "questions about whether medication treatment beyond two years continues to be beneficial or needed at all." Earlier reports found that children taking stimulants alone or combined with behavioral treatment did better in the first year than children who got no special care or who got behavioral treatment alone.
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