Hyperactive: The Controversial History of ADHD by Matthew Smith

Author:Matthew Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: History
ISBN: 9781780230566
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Published: 2012-09-14T21:00:00+00:00

five

Alternative Approaches

Biological explanations and pharmaceutical treatments for hyper-

activity might have become predominant by the 1970s, but that did

not mean that every parent – or physician – was satisfied with such

approaches to the disorder. In 1978, an article in Utah Holiday, for example, told the story of a five-year-old girl whose hyperactivity

was ‘calmed . . . slightly’ by a stimulant drug, but only at the expense of ‘hallucinations, nightmares, insomnia, headaches, and less

appetite’.1 Another family described in the article had adopted three hyperactive children, one of whom was ‘bent on pyromania’. Ritalin

was prescribed for their children, but it ‘would wear off in two hours and then the children would be even wilder’.2 For these Utah

parents, Ritalin was not the answer. Other parents had different

reasons for questioning the conventional biological approach to

hyperactivity. While some had read reports critical of hyperactivity medication and did not feel comfortable giving drugs to their child, others simply wanted to try some other options before resorting to

stimulant medication.

Fortunately for these parents, as well as their sympathetic physi-

cians, there were a number of alternative therapies from which to

choose by the mid-1970s. Possible explanations for hyperactivity

attributed its rising rates to everything from fluorescent lighting and food additives to television and lack of exercise in the great outdoors.

One apparently serious letter writer to American Psychologist attributed some cases of hyperactivity to tight and itchy underwear, stating that a college student of his went from being a c to an a student once he began changing his underwear every day, rather than every two weeks.3

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h y p e r a c t i v e

Even more alternative approaches to hyperactivity have emerged

in the medical literature in the last couple of decades, reflecting both dissatisfaction with the conventional wisdom regarding the disorder

and increasing interest in non-traditional medicine more generally.

A review article by L. Eugene Arnold in 2001, for example, listed 24

alternative treatments for hyperactivity, including additive-free diets, herbal therapies, vitamin, amino acid and mineral supplementa-tion, massage, meditation, acupuncture and electromyography

(emg) biofeedback.4 While the efficacy of many of these therapies

was based on a small number of clinical observations, other

alternative approaches to hyperactivity had been studied in depth,

some with promising results. But even in cases where a good deal of

support was garnered through clinical and trial evidence, most

physicians remained highly sceptical of such alternatives and

ushered parents with hyperactive children firmly towards stimulant

medication.

To a degree, the reluctance to consider alternative measures,

especially untested ones, was understandable. For physicians in the

1970s who were intent on helping their hyperactive patients effi-

ciently, stimulant therapy was simply seen as the best and most

reliable approach to dealing with the disorder. When the countless

advertisements for hyperactivity drugs in medical journals, induce-

ments from pharmaceutical companies, positive results from

clinical trials, and, most likely, a good number of success stories

were taken into consideration by the average general practitioner,

paediatrician or psychiatrist, it is not surprising that a prescription for Ritalin was their first port of call. Moreover, while the pharmaceutical treatment of hyperactivity fitted into a biomedical paradigm with which most physicians would feel comfortable, most

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