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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Treatment and medication
That turns a hard conversation into an easier one. Instead of pressing a reluctant partner towards the single thing they least want, you can offer a range and let them start where they are willing. Something usually pulls another thing along with it: better sleep makes the therapy homework possible, medication makes the organising stick. Starting anywhere is far better than the long argument about starting with the right thing.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
Follow the ways made easy for you by your Lord (Quran 16:69). More than one road is provided, and taking the one currently open to you is not a lesser choice.
النحل
ثُمَّ كُلِي مِن كُلِّ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ فَٱسۡلُكِي سُبُلَ رَبِّكِ ذُلُلࣰ اۚ يَخۡرُجُ مِنۢ بُطُونِهَا شَرَابࣱ مُّخۡتَلِفٌ أَلۡوَٰنُهُۥ فِيهِ شِفَآءࣱ لِّلنَّاسِۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَأٓيَةࣰ لِّقَوۡمࣲ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
Then feed on all kinds of fruit and follow the ways made easy for you by your Lord.’ From their bellies comes a drink of different colours in which there is healing for people. There truly is a sign in this for those who think
Qur’an 16:69read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In 124 adults with ADHD, CBT combined with medication was compared with CBT alone across core symptoms, emotional symptoms, self esteem and functioning, which is the clearest test in this bank of whether two things together beat one. Alongside it, a network meta-analysis set pharmacological, psychological and complementary treatments for children and adolescents against each other rather than each against placebo. Neither tested a whole stack of five approaches, so read them as support for combining rather than as a formula for how many.
Pan MR, Huang F, Zhao MJ, Wang YF, Wang YF, Qian QJ. (2019). A comparison of efficacy between cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and CBT combined with medication in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).. Psychiatry research doi
Catalá-López F, Hutton B, Núñez-Beltrán A, Page MJ, Ridao M, Macías Saint-Gerons D, Catalá MA, Tabarés-Seisdedos R, Moher D. (2017). The pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents: A systematic review with network meta-analyses of randomised trials.. PloS one doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Each kind of help works on a different part of the problem, so they add up rather than repeating each other.
Two things happening together is not one causing the other. Learn that once and you have a reply to most of the claims you will meet.
Behaviour work for ADHD is mostly about changing what the adults do. The child's behaviour shifts afterwards, as a consequence.
You are going to look things up anyway, so start somewhere with proper review behind it. CHADD and Understood both have professionals checking what goes on the page.