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ADHD drug treatment: Pros and cons

Last reviewed: July 2010
Child taking a pill
ADHD medicines don't cure the condition, but they can keep symptoms under control, which may improve a person's daily functioning.

Medication helps many children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but it's not a cure-all, as our survey of 934 parents revealed. We found that most of the families turned to medication—84 percent at some point. And more than half of the children in our survey had tried two or more medications in the past three years.

The children who were prescribed medication tended to be older and their symptoms more severe before treatment than those who had never tried medication. The average age of the children who had tried medication was 13, while the average age of those who had never tried medication was 10.

 
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