The American Academy of Neurology issued a position statement in the journal Neurology, citing their concern over the increasingly common practice of prescribing stimulant medications to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, in healthy children.
The doctors said that prescribing these types of medications with the intent of increasing a child's mental capacity should stop.
There have been reports that ADHD medications, which have been proven to increase mental ability, are commonly used among teens as a study aid when they are preparing for tests.
And there has been a 20 percent increase in diagnoses of the condition, along with a tenfold increase of the production and usage of the medications used to treat it.
Furthermore, between three and eight percent of high school seniors in the U.S. were found to take Ritalin or Adderall without a prescription, according to a 2012 government survey.
The controversy over prescribing ADHD medications comes into play because there are some cases where a doctor may prescribe these drugs to a healthy child, either intentionally or because of a misdiagnosis.
Dr. William Graf, a professor of pediatrics and neurology at the Yale School of Medicine and an author of the position statement said that doctors might provide prescriptions for ADHD medications because of "normal" symptoms like difficulty concentrating and thinking after spending many hours working.
Another issue associated with the concern of ADHD medications is that teens may feign symptoms of the condition in order to receive prescriptions. Parents may also lie for their children so they can receive the drugs from the doctor.
Graf said that doctors should be more cautious when prescribing ADHD medications for children to prevent the possibility of abuse.
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