SEPTEMBER 1999

RITALIN A MIRACLE PILL OR A DANGEROUS DRUG Such as speed or cocain, ritalin or methylphenidate (it's scientific name) is a central nervous system stimulant. If an adult would take this medication, he or she would have the same effect as drinking several cups of strong coffee, but the effect would last longer. So, how does this medication help calm children and increase their attention span ? The truth is that no one really knows how. The primary effect of this drug is to stimulate the production of two neurotransmitters (dopamine and noradrenaline), which are chemical substances that allow the passage of a message from one nerve cell to the next. So, why does an increase in production of these substances affect hyperactive children differently ? Certain hypotheses have been made, but to this day, there is no exact explanation on the effects of this drug which has been used by guessing since the 1950's. Every parent of school aged children has heard of ritalin ; the medication that is prescribed to hyperactive children. Often, intense pressures are made on parents by the teacher or the school administration to treat their agitated child with ritalin. In Québec, the consumption of ritalin is five times greater now than in 1990. Five percent of school aged children take it, and in underprivileged areas, this percentage rises to twelve percent. One would wonder if hyperactivity isn't contagious ! We know that ritalin may have positive effects on the attention span and agitation levels of hyperactive children. But we must ensure that the child is truly hyperactive. We should be certain that ritalin is not used exageratively.Let's admit, with the cutbacks in our education system, these pills are much cheaper for the government than specialized teachers. Could it be that ritalin has become a pretext to neutralize children with emotional problems, those that are agitated because they are beaten, abused, hungry, or those that simply have a lot of energy ? The effects of ritalin are as follows : One hour after taking the drug, we notice a decrease in agitation, the peak effect happens 90 minutes after the consumption and greatly decreases after 2.5 hours. The optimal effects for attention are slower to happen.They can be noticed 1.5 hour after ingestion and last approxi-matively 4 hours. A wrong dosage could affect the medication's effectiveness. A dosage too weak will not produce the desired effects and a dosage too strong could lead to undesirable adverse effects. The most common adverse effect is appetite loss. Headaches, nausea, insomnia, hypertension, trembling, are also frequent. Tachycardia, a possible arry-thmia and twitching are all short term adverse effects. Very few long term effects have been documented. A slight decrease in growth has been reported in cases of prolonged usage. We must specify that 30% of young hyperactives do not react positively to this treatment. The utilisation of ritalin is growing at an uncontolled pace, yet, very few studies on the long term effects have been done. Sonia Faggion Sources : Le point sur le ritalin, (Charles Robitaille), Méducation