Does Piracetam actually help autistic child?

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zenstrive
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21 Jan 2016, 2:29 am

My child is 33 months olf as of jan 2016 and autistic.
His peditrician prescribes Piracetam as a medicine.

Does it actually help? What I see in my child is that his hyperactivity is still there, but his actions can somewhat be guided by others now, but still mostly not communicating verbally. He can give me food containers to open, but don't say to me to open it, just showing annoyance when I don't open it quickly.



Ettina
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22 Jan 2016, 6:38 am

The results of my Google scholar search on that were kind of odd.

I only found 1 actual study:

http://tinyurl.com/jmq3s8b

It found a slight positive effect, but fairly minimal. Plus, all subjects were taking risperidone as well.

Then I found a pile of studies citing that one as evidence that piracetam was an 'established' treatment for autism, which is really strange. One study doesn't make a treatment established.

However, I'd say regardless of the research base, look at what impact it's having on your son. Maybe try taking him off it for awhile (with the pediatrician's guidance - never change meds without talking to a doctor!) and see if you notice him getting worse. If so, put him back on it.

It can be especially tough to tell if a treatment is effective on a child, because children normally improve their skills over time regardless of what you do. But if the improvement slows or reverses when he's not on the med, then you know the med is working.



zenstrive
Butterfly
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Joined: 21 Jan 2016
Age: 44
Posts: 12

22 Jan 2016, 7:02 am

Thanks, Ettina
The pediatrician also give him another cocktail of meds in form of powder which I forget the name. One of them maybe risperidone.
I will discuss with her later.