Treatment
Treatment of SCT has not been well investigated. Initial drug studies have been done only with the ADHD medication, methylphenidate (Ritalin/Concerta), and found that most children with DSM-III ADD-H (currently ADHD-C) responded well at medium-to-high doses. However, a sizable percentage of children with ADD without hyperactivity (using DSM-III criteria; therefore the results may apply to SCT) did not gain much benefit from methylphenidate, and when they did benefit, it was at a much lower dose. Tests in lab rats have demonstrated that low doses of Ritalin can increase norepinephrine levels. While methylphenidate and amphetamines have many similar effects on patients (both inhibit reuptake of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, for example), amphetamines also promote release of those neurotransmitters; therefore, Diamond argued, amphetamines may be more helpful than methylphenidate for individuals with ADD (and/or possibly SCT). However, one study found that the presence or absence of SCT symptoms made no difference in response to methylphenidate in children with ADHD-PI. Another study, a retrospective analysis of medical histories, also found that children with SCT responded well to methylphenidate.
Only one study has investigated the use of behavior modification methods at home and school for children with predominantly SCT symptoms and it found good success.
Some SCT individuals report anecdotally that they experience improvement in their ability to focus through meditation, but this claim has not been subjected to scientific study.
Read more about this topic: Sluggish Cognitive Tempo
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Judge Ginsburg’s selection should be a model—chosen on merit and not ideology, despite some naysaying, with little advance publicity. Her treatment could begin to overturn a terrible precedent: that is, that the most terrifying sentence among the accomplished in America has become, “Honey—the White House is on the phone.””
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, “Go to sleep by yourselves.” And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)