PEDIATRICS Vol. 75 No. 3 March 1985, pp. 614
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Adolescents and Ritalin

HANS R. HUESSY MD1

1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, College of Medicine, Burlington, VT 05405

To the Editor.—

I continue to see patients in late adolescence with serious social and psychological problems that had been treated successfully with Ritalin. The medication was stopped at age 12 years because "the condition goes away at that age."

Attention deficit disorder may indeed spontaneously remit at any age. Such remissions are unpredictable. Many patients continue with their problems long into adult life.

If a child had problems related to attention deficit disorder of sufficient degree to warrant the use of medication, such medication should be continued as long as it exerts an obviously beneficial effect.