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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: General Battuta on March 15, 2010, 04:07:25 pm

Title: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: General Battuta on March 15, 2010, 04:07:25 pm: Fascinating read. (http://jezebel.com/5493574/these-parents-were-trying-to-keep-their-kids-alive-medication-psychiatry-and-kids-with-issues)

Interesting to see a counterpoint to the common wisdom on this topic, especially from someone who set out to write a book about how kids were overmedicated and overdiagnosed.

Not coming down on either side myself.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: MR_T3D on March 15, 2010, 04:21:04 pm: its like the issue isn't black and white, but
SHADES OF GRAY
some kids are under-medicated and undiagnosed
because of the way US healthcare (doesn't) work, some children whom need medication will go without, while others whom really don't will.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: castor on March 15, 2010, 04:37:34 pm: I'm not convinced that any amount of medication or diagnosis is enough to solve the problem.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: General Battuta on March 15, 2010, 04:40:09 pm: Quote from: castor on March 15, 2010, 04:37:34 pm
I'm not convinced that any amount of medication or diagnosis is enough to solve the problem.

Which problem?
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: castor on March 15, 2010, 04:46:07 pm: The problems they talk about in the article. I think a great deal of those are side effects (or symptoms) of the culture we are running.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Kosh on March 15, 2010, 07:53:05 pm: PBS Frontline: The Medicated Child (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/)

Watch that, then let me know if American children are underdiagnosed.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: General Battuta on March 15, 2010, 08:01:09 pm: My answer remains 'possibly.'
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: NGTM-1R on March 15, 2010, 11:19:40 pm: Quote from: Kosh on March 15, 2010, 07:53:05 pm
PBS Frontline: The Medicated Child (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/)

Watch that, then let me know if American children are underdiagnosed.

Sure, because Frontline's a trusthworthy program.

Oh wait...
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Ford Prefect on March 16, 2010, 01:22:09 am: Present discussion aside, what do you have against "Frontline"? I find their work to be some of the most professional investigative journalism out there. They were pretty much responsible for getting Terence Garner (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ordinary/) released from prison.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Kosh on March 16, 2010, 03:36:24 am: Quote from: Ford Prefect on March 16, 2010, 01:22:09 am
Present discussion aside, what do you have against "Frontline"? I find their work to be some of the most professional investigative journalism out there. They were pretty much responsible for getting Terence Garner (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ordinary/) released from prison.

Well, since we're still waiting for him to present any evidence at all in that other thread I'm questioning his understanding of what can be construed as reliable or credible.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Ford Prefect on March 16, 2010, 03:59:27 am: That's a funny coincidence! I was just questioning your understanding of what can be construed as civil.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: NGTM-1R on March 16, 2010, 04:22:51 am: Quote from: Ford Prefect on March 16, 2010, 01:22:09 am
Present discussion aside, what do you have against "Frontline"? I find their work to be some of the most professional investigative journalism out there.

I'm still rather annoyed with their hopping wholeheartedly on the pedo hunt bandwagon back in the day.

Quote from: Kosh on March 16, 2010, 03:36:24 am
Well, since we're still waiting for him to present any evidence at all in that other thread I'm questioning his understanding of what can be construed as reliable or credible.

Oh come now Kosh, I gave up on you. You leave too many points unanswered cherrypicking the ones you can fight.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Galemp on March 16, 2010, 05:24:54 pm: Meh. I think the more psychiatrists understand the way childrens' minds work, the more impetus there is to try and make them 'normal.' At what point do we stop diagnosing personality traits as 'disorders' that need to be medicated?
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: General Battuta on March 16, 2010, 05:33:09 pm: I believe the article supplies an argument as to exactly when.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: iamzack on March 16, 2010, 09:06:11 pm: i go with overdiagnosed... about 4/5 people i know are diagnosed bipolar.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Mongoose on March 16, 2010, 09:12:57 pm: You need to run with a saner crowd. :p
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Nuke on March 16, 2010, 09:18:43 pm: insane people kinda tend group themselves off from the rest of society, just because its easier for them (or rather us since im pretty bat**** myself) to be accepted by someone else thats crazy than a normal person. its basic human behavior, birds of a feather essentially. it might be better if we were around normal people, but youd always be the loon of the group which would drive a normal person crazy, for a crazy its just torture.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: iamzack on March 17, 2010, 12:14:40 pm: Actually, I tend to hang out with normal people whenever I can. The "OMG WE'RE SO CRAAAAZY LOLOL" people just piss me off. They're wastes of space. All they do is smoke pot and show up to class drunk and mooch off their parents, and they're not any fun to hang out with.

But yeah, a lot of my friends are kinda wealthy, so at the first sign of trouble (cutting, got caught drinking once, etc) their parents haul them off to a shrink and they come back diagnosed bipolar.

Tura's friends seem to be old enough that they escaped all that, so they're actually fun to hang out with.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Bobboau on March 17, 2010, 12:46:01 pm: nuke's point: crazies tend to cluster.

iamzack's observation: all the people I hang out with are either diagnosed as having a disorder, getting treatment, and dull, or are not identified as a crazy and fun to hang out with.

point of the thread: a lot of people are undiagnosed crazies.

hmmmmmmm................
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Scotty on March 17, 2010, 01:05:25 pm: I think her point was that they aren't undermedicated, regardless of the status of diagnosis.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Sushi on March 17, 2010, 01:20:22 pm: I thought the article made a case that kids with problems are undertreated, but not undermedicated or underdiagnosed as in the thread title.

If it turns out the "prevailing wisdom" that kids are getting diagnosed and medicated for every little thing is false, I'm OK with that. :)
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Liberator on March 17, 2010, 06:02:55 pm: Quote from: Galemp on March 16, 2010, 05:24:54 pm
Meh. I think the more psychiatrists understand the way childrens' minds work, the more impetus there is to try and make them 'normal.' At what point do we stop diagnosing personality traits as 'disorders' that need to be medicated?
Till we all look like
(http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/students/purdy/Gates_of_Borg.jpg)
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: iamzack on March 17, 2010, 09:01:47 pm: I am probably what they talk about when talking about undermedicated. ****ers. The side effects haven't been worth it for any of the medications I've been forced to take.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Nuke on March 17, 2010, 09:18:33 pm: i havent taken meds since i was still in highschool. i dont miss them either. funny thing was i was given both uppers and downers for depression and add respectively. their effects essentially canceled eachother out while leaving me in a total daze, making the whole (completely misunderstood) problem worse. didnt help considering all the quacks i had to see because my mom was on welfare. i was diagnosed with everything from brain seizures, depression, odd, add, hd, to name a few, many of which were completely bogus.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: iamzack on March 17, 2010, 09:54:35 pm: ODD, lol... talk about made-up mental illnesses.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Nuke on March 18, 2010, 02:31:36 am: i totally agree there. but its the brain seizures that i dont see how they coulda ****ed up on, i never had them, not one. hyperactivity as well, i was a god dammed couch potato growing up. they probibly confused add with bordom, considering by the time i was diagnosed with that, i was already in a special school for the disturbed, where they were teaching us with material at least 4 grades below our current level. my question is how can shrinks be so stupid?
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Liberator on March 18, 2010, 03:55:22 am: They only have what we give them to work with. A shrink will talk to you and ask you how you feel and that sort of thing. When in point of fact they should be digging into your life's history to determine patterns of behavior and using that to make a diagnosis. An hour on the couch with the average teenager, who probably doesn't want to be there in the first place, is going to net you a plate of condescension and side of backtalk and that's about all.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Nuke on March 18, 2010, 04:12:27 am: i started seeing shrinks when i was 9, by the time i was a teenager it was so regular that it didnt bother me. on the other hand im sure many troubled teenagers would welcome an adult that actually listens to them (their parents certainly arent). sure a teenager that first sees a shrink is gonna hate it, but after a few sessions they kinda welcome it. observations straight from the nuthouse. the problem is most teens hardly get any couch time at all, they see the shrink for 15 minutes, which is just long enough to write a prescription for prozac and make sure they havent tried to kill themselves.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Colonol Dekker on March 18, 2010, 04:21:13 am: We've all got our skeleton cupboards.

Incidentally I think a good round of national service would sort out confidence issues.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Dilmah G on March 18, 2010, 04:43:27 am: Quote from: Colonol Dekker on March 18, 2010, 04:21:13 am
Incidentally I think a good round of national service would sort out confidence issues.
And ODD, ;)
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Nuke on March 18, 2010, 02:43:23 pm: i did try joining the marines back in '03, they they said i was too crazy to join.

does make a good point though. even if the childhood illnesses are completely bogus, the stigma associated with them is not. the shortcuts parents take are for them, these parents have no concern for the future of their children, they dont even face the possibility of their children becoming adults. its like "he will grow out of it, for now, just keep him drugged". the result is adults which are completely mal-adapted to society.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: iamzack on March 18, 2010, 07:10:04 pm: Quote from: Nuke on March 18, 2010, 04:12:27 am
the problem is most teens hardly get any couch time at all, they see the shrink for 15 minutes, which is just long enough to write a prescription for prozac and make sure they havent tried to kill themselves.

this. seeing a shrink in the first place was my idea, not my mum's. turned out to be a huge mistake. i would not recommend seeing head doctors to teenagers. i wish i'd waited until i was 18.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: MP-Ryan on March 20, 2010, 10:45:11 pm: Quote from: iamzack on March 18, 2010, 07:10:04 pm
Quote from: Nuke on March 18, 2010, 04:12:27 am
the problem is most teens hardly get any couch time at all, they see the shrink for 15 minutes, which is just long enough to write a prescription for prozac and make sure they havent tried to kill themselves.

this. seeing a shrink in the first place was my idea, not my mum's. turned out to be a huge mistake. i would not recommend seeing head doctors to teenagers. i wish i'd waited until i was 18.

Generally, responsible psychologists are going to be very cautious about diagnosing mental illness or disorder in teenagers anyway.

Based on the posts you constantly make on the subject, I'm frequently wondering if you either leave out important details, or persist in seeing some nutbar with a psychology degree. What you post is not representative of the fields of psychology or psychiatry at all. I'm just reserving judgment on where the discrepancy is originating.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: iamzack on March 20, 2010, 11:04:44 pm: Maybe I just had bad luck in seeing 9 incompetent shrinks in a year and a half. But I can only be told that my opinion on whether I should take a drug doesn't matter in the slightest due to being 16/17 so often before I write off the process entirely.
Title: Re: Are today's kids undermedicated and underdiagnosed?
Post by: Nuke on March 21, 2010, 12:46:25 am: teens dont get much choice in the shrinks they get to see. especially when their parents are supported by welfare or whatever. you kinda just have to deal with the quacks that will see you.