I was pretty shocked when I came
on Aliyah five years ago to discover that a huge number of children were
prescribed Ritalin in Israel.
This medicine whose generic name is
methylphenidate is the usual pharmacologic treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD). The lawyer Or Sadan performed a survey in 2016 to evaluate the
Ritalin consumption in Israel. The results are disturbing! About 3.5% of the
population is prescribed Ritalin! If we compare this result with the rate in
France it is 40-fold higher!!
How
can we explain this difference? In Israel and the United States due to numerous
clinical trials, physicians have come to trust pharmacologic methods to treat
ADHD and other behavioral disorders. However, health professionals in European
countries trust psychological therapies more and encourage the family to find
out the specific causes of the child’s difficulties. They encourage treatments
including family therapy and the development of new behavioral habits in
children. French psychiatrists and psychologists hope in this way to help
children develop their ability to concentrate, becoming self-sufficient and
acquiring good self-esteem. They also believe that they are protecting the
children from the harmful side effects of Ritalin. The most frequent of these
are a headache, trouble sleeping, irritability, moodiness, reduced appetite. In
a long-term Ritalin can lead to muscle and joint pain, breathing problems,
depression, cocaine addiction...
Health
professionals all over the world think that Ritalin is over-prescribed
nowadays. Children who are mistakenly diagnosed with ADHD and treated with
Ritalin may have disruption to brain development. Studies have shown that the
brain may become desensitized to natural pleasure like food, love and social
interaction leading to depression. For all these reasons parents and teachers
should be more careful when thinking that children need Ritalin simply because
they have a lot of energy or difficulties to concentrate. The goal of this article is not to describe
all the negative effects of Ritalin but rather to make parents and educators
aware of their responsibility.
And
I will conclude with this quotation of the philosopher Thomas Schauder: “If we
treat psychological problems with molecules in the same way as we could change
defective parts of a car, we take the risk of building a world without spirit”.
I knew you'd write about ritalin! Do you remember our beautiful laminated poster from the Designing the Materials course?
ReplyDeleteReading your blog gave me a pretty good review on the effects of ritalin. It certainly is very disturbing!! As a school counselor my staff team and I often send pupil to a neurologist, due to the fact that they are disturbed during studying at school- some times having hyperactive symptoms and at other times just having difficulties to concentrate although they're very quiet kids.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that dealing with those type of difficulties should be treated from the root, such as going to therapy- individually or family therapy. The problem is that unfortunately allot of parents here in Israel don't run to get psycholigical treatment- either for themselves or for their kids (from various different reasons).
Once this is the case, we always find ourselves in a dilema whether to suggest the option of medication or to consider creating a special program for the specific pupil in- order for him to fit in and manage the intensity of school. At some cases, unfortunately, once the pupil and his parents don't agree to help himself in one of those options, we need to think together with them, of a better school to fit the pupils' needs.
Yael, you've touched a very serious topic. I think that we as future teachers should be sensitive to students behavioral problems and hyperactive symptoms. When suspecting such case we should suggest using professional help to parents of the student . The awareness of harmful side effects is vital, therefore before being prescribed with Ritalin a child should be diagnosed thoroughly by several specialists and all possible pros and cons should be considered.
ReplyDeleteYael, your topic is very important and we are, as a future teachers should know all those deatils, the affects of retalin and it will help us understand our students better and be sensitive with them.
ReplyDelete