Chapter 12 - Physician's Contribution to the Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disabilities: Implications for Medication Management and Collaborative Treatment

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This chapter focuses on the role played by psychiatrists in the evaluation and treatment of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities (LD). Monitoring the benefits and risks of stimulants, antidepressants, and antihypertensives is often the main focus of psychiatrists in the role of treating the children diagnosed with ADHD and LD. However, psychiatrists may also function as case managers, cocase managers, educators, and therapists on a team of clinicians and educators in the multimodal treatment of these disorders. Psychiatrists constantly screen the trends in academic, medical, social, family functioning, cognitive, and speech development that can require the adjustment of existing interventions or the application of new interventions provided by the psychiatrist or other team members. The psychiatrist obtains information from potential team members and previous treating therapists and psychiatrists to complete the assessment phase of the evaluation. Once all the groundwork is completed, the psychiatrist formulates a diagnosis and presents a treatment plan to the patient and his or her family. The diagnostic formulation takes into account the history and mental status exam obtained in the interviews, the review of medical and educational records, as well as cognitive and speech and language testing, and the communication with treatment team members.