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Professor of cognitive neurology here
There is research into using gaze behavior (eye movements during targeted cognitive assessments) to develop an objective test of attention symptoms, but otherwise no. The screeners (questionnaires) are all very subjective, and a true diagnosis requires an extensive interview which is also subjective as it requires accurate recognition of one’s past behavior. Which is difficult, because the things you don’t pay attention to often don’t get remembered.
My main focus is on using gaze and speech behavior to diagnose Alzheimers disease and other dementias, but I am planning to expand my research to ADHD in the next few years.
I also have ADHD, and I’m motivated because my kids will probably have it as well.
Over diagnosed, probably. Over medicated, most definitely.
You’re wrong on both counts. You shouldn’t speak on matters you know nothing about.
Most definitely but also poorly defined which leads to the former
Yes, and no. This is an unanswerable question.
Negligence, ineptitude, and mistakes happen in every field and medicine, education, and parenting are no different.
There is pain in being diagnosed correctly just as much as there is incorrectly. The question we should be asking instead for both sides of the aisle is how do we best deliver knowledge, support, and care in the correct format to those who need it?
Definitely. A lot of kids that used to be called “very lively” back when I was in school are diagnosed with ADHD or similar conditions nowadays even if there’s nothing wrong with them.
We also used to call PTSD “shell shock” even though you don’t have to go to war to be affected. Science and medicine change and improve over time.
A lot of kids that used to be called “very lively” back when I was in school
Just like mania was “hysteria” and crippling suicidal depression was “a rut” or its victim “less of a man”.
And all of those people in the past who were “really into trains”
I got into a convo with a guy from my office about animals - lions and apes specifically. He was super enthusiastic and knew everything, and I was super enthusiastic about discussing all of it. Best convo ever. It took about a half hour before I realized other people were watching us with quite a bit of amusement. Turns out he has autism. I have adhd. No one else found this topic as fascinating as we did.
Whatever man. I learned a lot about lions and apes (which are completely different thank monkeys thank you very much)
Not overdiagnosed. Broadly defined.
Seems like too many people fall under the criteria, but that’s how psychologists defined it.
As medicine advances, most diseases or conditions will be diagnosed more often. With the extreme increase in technology in the past 50+ years I wouldn’t say that cancer is being over diagnosed just because we can find it better. While mental health science is arguably far behind traditional medicine, I wouldn’t say that ADHD as a whole is over diagnosed. Is it probable that there are some bad doctors that will simply hand wave kids away with an ADHD diagnosis? Sure but those cases are far less common than you might think. As someone with ADHD I have seen the sentiment that it is over diagnosed arise in my life as people claiming that what I suffer from isn’t real and I need to pay attention better, or that I’m just “abusing the Adderall to get ahead in life.” So no I don’t think it is over diagnosed and people around the world need to have a better understanding of how mental illness truly affects the people that suffer.
You’re just abusing adderal to get on par with NTs
I’ve always been fascinated how ADHD is the disorder that gets singled out for over diagnosis but not ASD.
AFAIK there’s not much in the way of pharma treatments for ASD so public policy couldn’t care less about it.
There’s money to be made in demonizing ADHD.
Forgive my naivety, how do you get rich off demonising adhd? It would stand to reason that bucks are made by over diagnosing and selling superfluous treatment, what would I sell you after adhd is demonised?
They’re selling another product.
Conmen like Tate and their ilk would love to sell you on the idea that Adderall is evil.
You gotta think diabolically.
My psychiatrist here in Australia cautioned me when doing online research into different ADHD medications to check the country of origin and avoid American sources where possible, as there is a huge anti-drug bias in US public and medical literature, and to stick to European/Australasian/other resources for more accurate information on mechanism of action and potential side-effects.
Boy, he was not wrong. If you go on many American websites that talk about the pros and cons of one stimulant or another, it’ll overemphasise its propensity towards abuse and extensively list the side effects without bothering to explain how the drug actually works in the body.
You’ll think it’s an unbiased source, at first, because the website itself only seem to contain basic drug information (at a cursory glance) only to scroll to the bottom and find that the website is owned/sponsored by a rehab facility, of all places.
It’d seem like there’s money to be made off of dx and prescribing ADHD meds, but we all know how fucking hard it is to dx’d in the first place, let alone prescribed something that works. It’s not wildly profitable to prescribe drugs with heavy federal restrictions on it.
What is profitable, however, is to give someone 6 other psychiatric medications to treat ongoing mental health issues from undiagnosed ADHD, and the half dozen other co-morbid issues like substance abuse disorders, PTSD, anxiety/depression, bipolar disorders, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and so on- none of which you’ll get much traction in treating without also addressing ADHD, and some of which may be misdiagnosed or more effectively treated when identifying the core disorder.
Why treat 1 condition when you can treat 7 ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Better yet, you can do that in an inpatient facility that their insurance can pay for, where you can convince them that their substance abuse issues are due to moral failing rather than an attempt at self-medicating a (widely speaking) treatable disorder, yet hypocritically prescribe them a cocktail of other psychiatric medications for their “moral failing”.
That being said, I’m not saying all rehab facilities are bad or operate in this manner, but it is just one of many ways that the medical and pharmaceutical industry inadvertently or directly discourages appropriate ADHD treatment, additionally fuelled by the government’s bigotry-fuelled war on drugs.
Jesus man. Thanks for the reply.
Don’t know. I’m on a 2-5 year waiting list to find out 😵💫
Username coming through here
Dang, that’s a long wait time. I hope you get some answers soon.
Cheers. Me too
Say more please!
Mental health issues since I was 14. Diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression in my 20s. Been on so many medications which don’t work. Now in my 40s my wife see’s a self diagnostic for ADHD and says “you have every single one of these traits, perhaps you should mention it to your shrink” Ask my shrink who says of course we can refer you but the NHS has a waiting list of 2-5 years for an adult referral unless I go private. I’ve been waiting for a year and a half so far.
Dude, that really sucks. I wish you all the best! And thank you for sharing!
I’m not sure what the diagnosis process is wherever you’re at but here is a series of questionnaires for people in your family and yourself and your boss/teacher (depending on age) and that’s it. Super simple. I swear anyone with a photocopier and a pocket calculator could do the diagnosis.
When I had myself and my kids inspected I was shocked.
Thanks dude
That’s awful. Here in the United States you may get harangued trying to fill your prescription but getting in to see someone for a diagnosis generally doesn’t take long at all!
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Find an FQHC that does Mental or Family Health.
Probably under diagnosed with people who actually have it.
It can be both overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed! Both these things can be true at once:
- Some people who would benefit from ADHD treatment do not receive it.
- Some people receive ADHD treatment who would be better off without it.
One contributing factor is that people are treated differently in the contexts where ADHD is likely to come up (e.g. in schools) due to things like race, gender, and family income.
A black boy and a white girl having the same “brain stuff” going on are likely to be treated differently by teachers and parents — not only due to overt sexism and racism, not only hormonal and developmental differences, but also different cultural experiences with medicine (and medical mistreatment), different parental fears, etc.
The scientific, peer-reviewed answer is that it is significantly under-diagnosed in adults as well as in those AFAB of all ages. Most sources say up to 80% of adults with ADHD are undiagnosed and/or untreated.
what is ASAB in this context?
Assigned snake at birth, it’s a yuan-ti thing
A typo. It should be AFAB, assigned female at birth.
All Snakes are Bastards
May I have this source? Being genuine here, I don’t doubt this but I may use it to show people and maybe put a bug in their ear to get diagnosed.
I found these citations in a paper on the first page of Google. I apologize but I have not verified them.
Fayyad J, De Graaf R, Kessler R, et al. Cross-national prevalence and correlates of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Br J Psychiatry. 2007;190(5):402–409.
Retz W, Retz-Junginger P, Thome J, et al. Pharmacological treatment of adult ADHD in Europe. World J Biol Psychiatry. 2011;12(suppl 1):89–94.
Newcorn JH, Weiss M, Stein MA. The complexity of ADHD: diagnosis and treatment of the adult patient with comorbidities. CNS Spectr. 2007;12(suppl 12):1–14. quiz 15–16.
Thank you!
No problem, hope it was helpful. I will review further when I have time.
I agree with you.
I think argueing if adhd might be over or under diagnosed makes adulds feel even more ashamed.
I also don’t like blaming self diagnosis. Women having a hard time finding professionell help, cause they never fit into stereotypical adhd behaivor. They seen as overreacting and emotional.
What does ASAB mean?
It was a typo that has been corrected to AFAB. The edit may not have federated to your instance yet.
I think the reason so many people are diagnosed with ADHD is related to how our society looks like.
I wouldn’t even consider it an illness or defect. Our brains are just wired differently.
In the past, this would have been beneficial for the survival of your tribe. But if you live in a modern city and work in an office, it makes you unable to deal with the challenges you normally face.Even just 30 years ago, the pressure to work efficiently and the hustle culture were much less pronounced than today.
Whenever I am out in nature hiking, hunting or kayaking, I don’t have any issues motivating myself and don’t feel like anything is wrong with me.
But in daily life, I barely function without meds.You should listen to the album Cave World by Viagra Boys (if you haven’t already). Don’t let the bands name fool you, it pretty much hits on everything in your comment but to the tune of Swedish post punk
I see this rhetoric a lot and I really dislike it and find it actively harmful to people with ADHD.
ADHD, at least mine, would absolutely still be a mental illness outside of modern society. My doesn’t care if I’m remembering where I put down my phone or where I put down my sandwich, I still misplace them either way. At work being without my medication makes it difficult to keep track of my responsibilities. At home it makes it difficult to keep track of doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the house. You don’t suddenly lose all responsibilities and idle tasks without a modern society, your responsibilities and tasks just become different. And my ADHD couldn’t give two shits what those responsibilities and idle tasks are, I’m going to struggle with them either way without medication.
Dismissing ADHD as not a mental illness but a symptom of modern society is not only incorrect at it’s most basic level, it also implies that people like me could be “normal” IF “x, y, or z” conditions were met. That idea is just blatantly untrue and just perpetuates the dismissive and uncompromising stance that many people take towards individuals with ADHD.
For adults, it’s under-diagnosed. Because some of the most common prescriptions for it are stimulants like Adderall, there is a fear that adults are trying to scam the doctor. Additionally, and imo even more infuriatingly, doctors are apprehensive about diagnosing an adult because “you made it this far in life without needing help. You can’t be ADHD/autistic/neurodivergent.” Fuck that mentality. I’m ADHD and autistic and I don’t need a doctor to validate me when they can’t even agree amongst themselves half the time.
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Do you have any idea how hard it is to be diagnosed with ADHD?
I was diagnosed when I was 32. In order to be diagnosed, I had to go through a series of screening tests that measured intelligence, executive function, behavioral assessments, interviews with family that knew me when I was a kid, “testimony” from my therapist and other tests meant to rule out alternative explanations. eg. sleep deprivation, health issues, depression, anxiety etc. And it was expensive. Thousands of dollars and many hours. Its essentially designed to mentally tax you until the ADHD is detectable through any masking that you do.
I was diagnosed as a kid and was on ritalin and later adderal but stopped taking all that stuff after elementary school. I’m 36 now and I wonder if it’d be a major pain to get on meds again as an adult or if my previous diagnosis would still be good enough.
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Fwiw, sounds pretty similar to me. Depends on your doc, probably… but I have a good relationship with my Dr. and my ability to discuss my previous diagnosis as well as meds and what worked etc. Was enough for me.
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