When do you decide if a child should go on a psychiatric medication?
Certain mental disorders always require medication in addition to therapy, says Roy Boorady, MD, child psychiatrist. In this video he explains the indicators that a child might need medication for their anxiety disorder.
Transcript
So if the anxiety is severe enough that it's getting in the way of the child being able to do the therapy, then I might decide more about medications earlier than later.
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There's clearly some disorders we see in psychiatry that are going to require medications no matter what the therapy, and for that I would bring up
examples like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The best therapy may not still reverse the course of the illness and is going to require medications.
But with say something like anxiety, for the first time a child presents with anxiety,
and they're still fairly functioning in terms of going to school, being with friends, and you first try a course of therapy,
I would want to set in my mind a certain benchmark in terms of how much time to give therapy before intervening with medication.
So if the anxiety is severe enough that it's getting in the way of the child being able to do the therapy, then I might decide more about medications earlier than later.
Or if a child has tried therapy for a matter of months and there's still no improvement, and they're not reaching those benchmarks,
meditation
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