October, 2001 - New guidelines on treating children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) from the American Academy of Pediatrics calls for physicians to treat ADHD as a chronic disease. "We need to recognize that ADHA is a long-term condition that requires individualized treatment," says UAB psychiatrist Rama Pemmaraju Rao, M.D. "We need ways to follow children over the long haul to make sure our therapies are working." ADHD is one of the most common conditions of childhood and affects between 4 and 12 percent of all school-age children. Rao says a combination of medications coupled with behavioral therapies has been shown to be highly effective in improving the function of children with ADHD.

---University of Alabama at Birmingham

Back to The Science of Mental Health