Evaluation of the Efficacy of Memantine in Combination with Ritalin on the Severity of Hyperactivity and Attention Deficit Symptoms in Children

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a common psychiatric disorder in children and paying attention to drugs that were used in this disorders are important. This study compares the efficacy of Ritalin with Memantin that is added to Ritalin on the severity of ADHD and attention deficit disorder in children. This study is a clinical trial. All of 76 patients with diagnostic criteria for ADHD had been selected from the group of children that they were 7-12 years old, through diagnostic interviews in control & experimental groups based on DSM-V. At first, both groups filled out the Connors parent questionnaire for assessing the severity of the symptoms. Then, Ritalin was prescribed for the patients in the control group and Memantin was added to Ritalin for the patients in the experimental group for one month. The two groups again completed the questionnaire and the effectiveness of drugs was compared. This study with research ethics code 139510 has been approved by research ethics committee at Arak university of medical sceinces and also has been registered with code IRCT2016080829268N1 at Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT). According to the P-value of this test, there was no significant difference between the two groups after taking the drugs, which is equal to 0.324 and more than 0.05. But in that groups, there was a significant difference in severity of the symptoms between groups before and after taking the drugs. Although the symptoms severity of hyperactivity decreased, there was no significant difference between these two groups. The Memantin added to Ritalin did not have a special effect on reducing the severity of symptoms compared to Ritalin. We can conclude the Ritalin might have had a significant effect on the symptoms reduction.