Our academic article, “Meditation or Medication? Mindfulness training versus medication in the treatment of childhood ADHD: A randomized controlled trial.” written by Renee Meppelink, details and argues for the use of mindfulness over medication when combating ADHD. Published in March of 2016, Meppelink along with two other authors describe a hypothetical experiment to test the effectiveness of mindfulness training compared to medication. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is among one the most widespread disorders among adolescents. Often times when looking for options in regard to treatment, healthcare professionals turn to medication. The large increase of ADHD diagnosis in the past few years has increased the production and prescriptions of these drugs.
Close to 5 percent of adolescents from the ages of 9 to 18 have been diagnosed with ADHD. This article attempts to challenge the financial and ethical consequences of medicating such an overwhelming number of youth. It explores other methods of combating ADHD, namely meditation and relaxation methods. The potential methods of study and all variables are well documented in the academic article. The cost of medicating such an astounding number of youth is rather alarming. Seven different European based studies revealed that the average total annual costs related to childhood ADHD lie between 9,860-14,483 euros, or $10,945 and $16,076.
This is a rather steep price for the average family. As one could imagine, a large portion of this price comes from medication used to combat the symptoms of ADHD. Methylphenidate is a stimulant used to combat the symptoms of ADHD. However, there are flaws with the drug past the price tag. In an MTA study, 64.1% of children suffered side effects from the drug.
These side effects could include insomnia, loss of appetite, abdominal pains, headaches, stress, nervousness and anxiety. In 2013, 72 tons of methylphenidate was used globally in the treatment of ADHD. While a plethora of different medications have arised to help eliminate these symptoms, a select few are prescribed widely to the general population. Methylphenidate being the drug discussed in this research paper. With such an expensive method for combating ADHD being seen as the only option, new and cheaper methods have been explored. Mindfulness training can mean multiple things, but for the sake of the experiment, mindfulness training consists of training sessions using MyMind.
These training sessions are 90 minutes weekly. The child attends the session with their parents. These sessions consist of meditation practice and other focus intensive exercises. Essentially reteaching your body to focus on one thing. Meditation requires constant focus, a task that can prove challenging for children with ADHD. The parents are also taught how to encourage focus in their child during these sessions. The study goes as follows, 120 families with children ages 9-18 diagnosed with ADHD are randomly separated into two groups. Group A will continue the weekly dose of Methylphenidate as prescribed, group B will be taking part in a weekly session of mindfulness training.
The groups are made sure to have an equal number of boys and girls in either group. Both groups will be monitored 4 times through a series of questionnaires both the child and parent takes. The first is given the day they’re randomly assigned a group. The second test will be taken 8 weeks after the start of the experiment.
The third and fourth tests are given at 4 and 10 months after the start of the experiment, respectively. The child’s questionnaire consists of a rating system to determine how the child is feeling about the following categories: Psychopathology, emotion regulation, perceived stress, self regulation, happiness, acceptance and mindfulness, quality of life, sleeping reduction, sleep efficiency, sleep quality, restless leg syndrome and quality of life. The parents are also asked to answer these questions as perceived by the parent. These questionnaires will hopefully give an accurate representation of how each of the treatment methods are working. We located our article on an educational journal called “BMC Psychiatry” which is part of an even bigger journal called “Bio Med central.” BMC is located out of the United Kingdom and was founded in 2000 by “Current Science Group.”
In 2002 the company began to charge articles processing fees, which from then, has been the main source of revenue for the company. In 2008, BMC publicly announced that they were going to be bought by “Springer Science and Business Media, which is the world’s second largest STM publisher. (Access to Articles) They are an “STM” publisher which means that they mainly focus on publishing articles about science, technology and medicine.
The company itself produces Genome Biology, BMC Medicine, BMC Biology, and many more of the journals. (The BMC-Series Journals) Many of the other articles that are published by the journal are owned independently, with BMC only providing the hosting of the article, publishing, and marketing. All of the articles that are posted in the journals are carefully peer-reviewed and open and freely accessible online.
BMC has a series journal, which is where we got our article from, they have a total of sixty five journals in that series. Between all the journals, they cover about every aspect of biology and medicine. Many of the journal’s focus on studies found and particular research. (Mindful Parenting Training in Child Psychiatric Settings: Heightened Parental Mindfulness Reduces Parents’ and Children’s Psychopathology.) There were three authors to the article we have explained above, the main author is Renee Meppelink. She was born in the Netherlands, graduated from the University of Amsterdam in 2013 studying special education, and currently works there in the research Institute of Child Development and Education.
The other two authors are Esther I. de Bruin, and Susan M. Bogels. These two other scholars that helped Meppelink write this trial, also studied at the University of Amsterdam. As you can see through what she has proposed, Meppelink doesn’t like the fact that parents and physicians immediately begin medicating children when they believe the patient has ADHD. As her other studies have shown, she is not one to believe people should immediately be medicated. (BMC Psychiatry) Meppelink has written two other studies that include mindfulness with developing children. One of her other studies was about mindfulness in higher education.
The primary goal of the study she was running was for people of higher education to learn about the origins of mindfulness in children. Another study that she ran was mindfulness parenting training in child Psychiatric settings. The main idea of this study is for parents and children not to come to conclusions so fast. (The BMC-Series Journals) This idea of mindful parenting training is for the participants to take part in “mindfulness based interventions” that allow parents to perceive their children with unbiased attention without judging them so they can become more attentive to the child and less reactive.
Throughout the studies that she has written I can tell that she really doesn’t like/ believe in the immediate conclusion of medication. She believes that there are more natural/beneficial ways to treat certain diseases other than medication. (Mindful Parenting Training in Child Psychiatric Settings: Heightened Parental Mindfulness Reduces Parents’ and Children’s Psychopathology.) The audience that this article was trying to reach out to, would be the parents and pediatricians of those minorities diagnosed with ADHD. The parents need to be aware of all of the side effects and risks that there are putting their child on medication for ADHD.
However, it is also the pediatrician’s job to make sure that their patient’s legal guardian’s understand the risks, because some parents fail to do research on medications and side effects. This article makes the parents and doctors really question if medication is the right road to walk down for their child. The exigence of the article is rather obvious, Meppelink and others wanted to challenge the use of medication in combating ADHD. New techniques and methods have shown to be not only cost effective, but incredibly effective. This study could help prove that perhaps other methods are a better choice in certain situations.
This article was extremely enlightening on the risks of ADHD medication and we are very excited to see the outcome of this experiment. Meppelink and the other co authors did an outstanding job together at describing the situation and made it very easy to figure out the audience and exigence.
