Ped Med: Advice on depressed youth

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Ped Med: Advice on depressed youth

By LIDIA WASOWICZ

UPI Senior Science Writer

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- When a child has been properly diagnosed

with depression and non-drug options ruled out, parents should not be

afraid to pepper the physician with questions before agreeing to a

pharmaceutical course of treatment, specialists advise.

The series of recent black eyes handed the medical establishment -- from

the withdrawal of the painkiller Vioxx from the market for safety reasons

to the affixing of warnings of suicidal behaviors in some users on

anti-depressant labels -- has played into parents' hands, placing them in a

particularly strong decision-making position of which they should take

advantage, experts say.

" The power relationship between the medical profession and patients and

parents may be shifting because of all those tragedies, " said researcher,

author and clinical psychologist Tamar Chansky.

Chansky, director of the Children's Center for OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive

Disorder) and Anxiety in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., has written " Freeing Your

Child from Anxiety " (Broadway Books, 2004) and " Freeing Your Child from

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder " (Crown Publishers, 2000).

" The best thing to come out of the Vioxx/antidepressant tragedies, given

all the press, would be that parents will be more concerned with safety,

that they will feel they have the right to get more information from the

medical professional, and more information is never a bad thing, " he said.

Before their interview with the physician, Chansky advises children's

caretakers to visit the library or reputable Web sites, such as those of

the American Pediatric Association or the American Psychiatric Association.

" The most important thing is to be informed, " he said.

" Come in with a printout and say, 'What can we do to make this work?' Ask

about the safety issues related to the medication. What should I expect to

see in my child? What are the expected reactions? What should I watch for

that would be a sign of a problem? " Chansky recommended.

" Parents should ask about changes that occur with SSRIs, " he advised. " The

child may be more sleepy or more energized. 'How do I differentiate a

normal reaction (to the medication) from my child becoming ... suicidal?'

When the doctor meets with the child even for 20 minutes, he should be able

to answer these questions. "

Once treatment starts, parents should be ready to seek additional

professional input if they're not seeing the anticipated improvement in

their child, specialists say.

" If the child is not getting better, and the doctor runs out of ideas or if

the doctor is seeing progress but the parents do not feel that way, they

should get a second opinion, " Chansky advised.

" Also, part of informed consent is knowing how you go off the medication,

and not all doctors talk about that, " he added. " Consult your doctor when

you're going to discontinue the child's medication. Children are getting

very sick from getting off the meds too quickly. "

Parents must educate themselves on what's at stake and advocate for their

child, urged Maddux, a clinical child psychologist at Mason

University in Fairfax, Va., who specializes in cognitive-behavior therapy.

" I hope that people will start to ask more questions. I hope they'll start

asking whether we're overmedicating, overprescribing for our children's

psychological problems, " he said.

" It's not a matter of not trusting the medical profession or mental-health

professional but a matter of realizing in many cases the science is just

not there and even well-intended people can make errors in judgment, and

the best protection is to be a well-informed consumer. "

(Editors' Note: This series on depression is based on a review of hundreds

of reports and a survey of more than 200 specialists.)

--

UPI Consumer Health welcomes comments on this column. E-mail Lidia Wasowicz

at lwasowicz@...

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