I've been doing quite a lot of reading about bipolar disorder (;-)) over the
past few weeks and I've come across a lot of stuff on the internet
suggesting that bipolar disorder often gets diagnosed wrongly as ADHD in
children. Obviously ritalin would be wholely inappropriate in these
circumstances but I don't think the parents could be blamed either for their
childrens' behaviour except by virtue of passing on their genes. The problem
with psychiatric disorders is there's often lots of overlap between
conditions, sometimes a trial of treatment is necessary and some treatments
work for one person but not another. I don't think you can say ADHD doesn't
exist - it is part of a spectrum of diagnoses which aren't fully understood.
Parents are glad of a label quite often because it does take the blame off
them (quite rightly in many cases) and helps to get the child the help they
need at school.
Margaret
> Ritalin IS useful in properly diagnosed ADHD. But I have many, many
parents
> of children with ADHD effectively say that that god he's got a disease and
> its being treated. The point is that immediately a health label is put on
> something then the pt/family perceives that illness is external to them
and
> they have no respsonsibility over anything. In the case of ADHD kids, the
> label and ritalin stops them from setting boundaries and the normal things
> other parents do. I now see significant numbers of ADHD children who have
> now 'conduct disorder', ie brat behaviour, as a result.
>
>
|