Stimulants and ADHD medications

Meet the patient

A 14-year-old boy is referred because his teachers say he "cannot concentrate". His mother wants "something for his ADHD". He has had no structured assessment, sleeps five hours a night on his phone, and his father was hospitalised last year for a stimulant-induced psychotic episode.[22][24]

The exam question this vignette plants is the one that fails stations: before you reach for a controlled drug, what must be true? A multi-informant, multi-setting diagnosis; sleep, anxiety, learning disorder and bipolar spectrum excluded or named; cardiac and family history taken; and a diversion risk plan. This topic is the prescribing spine behind that decision.[3][22][24]

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