Antidepressant No Good For Treating Autism
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 – According to a new study the antidepressant Celexa doesn’t help children with autism.
The researchers discovered that Celexa that is often prescribed for autism children produced more of an adverse effects on the children like impulsiveness, an increase in energy and decrease in concentration.
Celexa was prescribed to help reduce repetitive behaviors in autistic children.
The lead author of the study is a director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Childrens Hospital in Seattle and a professor and a vice-chairman of psychiatry at Washington School of Medicine, Bryan H. King, MD.
King stated that they were surprised at the results and they thought the medication would help the repetitve behavior, but come to find out it is no better than placebo.
Children with autism or autism spectrum disorders tend to have a repetitive behavior including repeatitive body movements, and asking the same question over and over again.
The details of the study consisted of evaluating 149 children between the ages 5 and 17. The children all have been diagnosed with autism or autism spectrum disorder were treated at six differet academic medical centers across the United States. The enrollment was from April of 2004 and October of 2006 and each were randomly chosen to take either liqued Celexa or placebo.
The researchers used common scales to see how well the drug showed improvement in the repetitive behaviors of the children.
After twelve weeks had past, aound 1 out of 3 children in each group were discovered that almost 33 percent of those using Celexa and about 34 percent on placebo had a decrease in the repetitive symptoms.
The side effects of the medication were more commonly found in the children taking Celexa. The results of the children taking Celexa were discovered to have an increase in energy levels, hyperactivity, sleeping problems, decreased concentration and reptition of the same movement.
The National Istitutes of Health funded the study. Research grants and funding from other pharmaceutical firms, including the maker of Celexa, Forest Laboratories Inc of New York helped this study happen.
More research is needed for prescriptions for autistic children.