The cost of keeping American kids physically and mentally healthy increased 56 percent between 1996 and 2013, a new study finds. Health care expenditures jumped from nearly $150 billion in 1996 to more than $233 billion in 2013 for those 19 and younger, researchers found. Routine newborn care in the hospital accounted for the largest share of spending in 2013. Next highest were attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and routine dental care, including checkups and braces, the researchers said.

There are high rates of cognitive dysfunction, especially executive dysfunction, in college students who misuse prescription stimulants compared with those who do not, new research suggests. "It is estimated that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] affects up to 8% of college students in the US," lead author Timothy Wilens, MD, from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, said in a poster session here at the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP) 27th Annual Meeting.

Offering students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder extended testing time or frequent breaks does not appear to help them perform better on a standardized test than other students with ADHD who do not get such accommodations, says a new study published in Learning Disabilities, a Multidisciplinary Journal.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) estimate that around 16 million American adults, or 7 percent of the U.S. population, had at least one major depressive episode in 2015...People with ADHD have a higher risk of depression due to the stress it causes and the challenges they face. Up to 70 percent of all people with ADHD will experience symptoms of depression at some time.

Let me start by saying that the decision to give medication to a child always rests with the parent. If a parent feels uncomfortable about medication, they should not be shamed or coerced into feeling differently. That being said, there is a lot of misinformation and misguided notions out there on not only ADHD

In 2014, the National Institute of Mental Health estimated that 13.1 percent of children 8 to 15 years of age had a diagnosable mental disorder within the prior year, and 21.4 percent of 13- to 18-year-olds had a seriously debilitating disorder at some point in their childhood. Dr. David Axelson, chief of Behavioral Health at Children’s Hospital, says that suicides among youth are up 40 percent across the country in the last eight years.

There’s been this funny phenomenon lately with the news media and blogosphere running multiple articles about psychiatric medication overuse at the same time new scientific research articles are showing something very different."