Writing for The Vancouver Sun and Postmedia News, Sharon Kirkey and Pamela Fayerman, report that, in an environment where the rate at which physicians are recommending certain antipsychotics for children has doubled since 2006, a local children’s hospital has launched what the reporters call “the world’s first clinic to help children cope with the side effects of such medications.”
The clinic, which helps children and their parents prepare for antipsychotic use or cope with its side effects, opened in April and has a four-week waiting list.
(Dr. Jana Davidson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who helped establish the specialized clinic) said she helped create the clinic because of her increasing alarm over the side effects of treatment in her patients. While she believes the medications are sometimes prescribed inappropriately, they are often useful for a range of disorders including severe aggression, mania in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. But the side effects can be serious.
“I would see kids with psychosis in the emergency department and then I would see them again 10 months later and they would be 30 to 50 pounds heavier,” she said.
Despite sometimes serious neurological side effects, more Canadian families are turning to the drugs and antipsychotic drug recommendations for youth jumped 114 percent in Canada from 2005 to 2009.
The drugs — which have not been approved in Canada for use in children under 18 — are being used for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorders, irritability related to autism, mood disorders, physical or verbal aggression and other behavioural problems.
