ADHD Ethical Implications

Addressing Ethical Implications in Treatment of ADHD
Clients who developed attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often associated with other disorders which is called comorbidities of adhd (American Psychiatric Association 2013). Junior is a 14 year old boy from the Mexican culture. He lived with both parents Diego and Francisca. Both parents are professionals and want their child to be successful academically. Junior has been having some challenges paying attention in school, it became even more severe in middle school. Junior was referred by the school counselor and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Junior doctor prescribed dextroamphetamine to help him to stay focused which improved his grades for

The medication enhances his ability to improve his grades for a while (ADHD Stimulant Addiction Case Study, 2015). However his mother soon observed that Junior was losing focuses again and also experiencing bleeding nose, lack of sleep and has been having weird visions about harming his mom. Children and adolescents who are diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder may also developed symptoms of other disorders such as depressive disorders. The DSM-5 (2013) points out that the client should be experiencing at least four of the symptoms such as weight loss, sleeping problems, fatigue, exhaustion, lack of motivation and energy , reoccurring thoughts of suicide or death to be diagnosed with depressive mood issue. Junior showed signs of weight loss, sleeping problems, exhaustions, lack of motivation and reoccurring thoughts of harm t his mother which suggest that he might be depressed. Ushijima, Usami, Saito, Kodaira, & Ikeda, (2012) said that comorbid depression was reportedly found in 20 to 30% of ADHD case because the evaluation of such symptoms can be difficult which sometimes is overlooked by clinicians if the clients does not show suicidal

Singh(2008) further noted that the validity if adhd will always be under scrutiny because of the growing rate in which children are diagnosed with ADHD. Even though stimulants have proven to work well with clients, it is still poorly understood as to how medication fully help the attention and the hyperactivity behaviors’ (Singh,2008) . Stimulants are known to have various side effects and only work for a short periods of time (Preston, O’Neal, & Talaga, 2013). Ethical issues can arise if clients are not aware of the short term treatment that some medications offers and their family develops more comorbid disorders which can cause complexity (Singh,2008) .To avoid ethical issues in regards to medications, counselors must consult and collaborate with the client’s doctor so that both clients and parents have a clear understanding of the treatment process, the benefits and the side effects of each medications (Rothenberger & Rothenberger,2013). The ACA,(2014) code of ethics informs counselors to practice making ethical decisions and consulting their supervisors when the need