Non-Stimulant for ADHD

BOSTON (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- According to the National Institute of Mental Health, as many as 5 percent of all American children, or about 2 million children, have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Many of them rely on stimulant medications to control the symptoms but these have many down sides. Now a new medication works a different way.

Kale Brodie hall loves to play sports. His mom, Paige, says he’s full of creativity. But like other kids with ADHD, kale has behavioral problems he can’t control.

“If the child sitting beside him in class teases him or pushes his papers off his desk, Kale will react negatively. He will push him back,” Paige tells Ivanhoe.

Stimulants like Ritalin and Concerta controlled Kale’s impulses, but they have to be taken throughout the day. Paige says, “I was constantly looking at my watch, wondering, 'Do we need to give him another dosage?'”

Now there’s Strattera (atomoxetine). It lasts 24 hours, and it’s not a stimulant.

Child psychiatrist Thomas Spencer, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, says, “This is the first really new kind of compound that’s been proven and really tested for this condition. So, it’s really a big paradigm shift.”

Dr. Spencer says it helps kids who don’t benefit from stimulants -- especially those who are anxious, have tics, or who have trouble sleeping. “It works primarily on a different system, in this case, norepinephrine," he tells Ivanhoe. "It helps with inattention, distractibility and hyperactivity,” all problems Paige has watched Kale struggle with.

“Basically, you have this screen around your brain when you don’t have ADD, and that keeps away all the distractions. But, a person with ADD has holes in that screen. What the medicine does is it puts up that screen. It fixes those holes,” says Paige, and now they have a new tool to patch the problem.

Strattera was FDA approved in November 2002 and is available by prescription. One side effect of Strattera is weight loss. It also has not been tested in children younger than 6.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

If you would like more information, please contact:

Thomas Spencer, M.D.
Massachusetts General Hospital
725 ACC Building
Boston, MA 02114