ADD - ADHD

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ADD - ADHD

NIH - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder "According to the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders2 (DSM-IV-TR), there are three patterns of behavior that indicate ADHD. People with ADHD may show several signs of being consistently inattentive. They may have a pattern of being hyperactive and impulsive far more than others of their age. Or they may show all three types of behavior. This means that there are three subtypes of ADHD recognized by professionals. These are the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type (that does not show significant inattention); the predominantly inattentive type (that does not show significant hyperactive-impulsive behavior) sometimes called ADD—an outdated term for this entire disorder; and the combined type (that displays both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms)."

NHS - Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) “Symptoms of ADHD in children and adolescents The symptoms of ADHD in children and adolescents are well defined. The main symptoms of each behavioural problem are detailed below. Inattentiveness • a very short attention span, • being very easily distracted, • being unable to stick at tasks that are tedious, or time consuming, • being unable to listen to, or carry out, instructions, • being unable to concentrate, and • constantly changing activity, or task. Hyperactivity • being unable to sit still, especially in calm or quiet surroundings, • constantly fidgeting, • being unable to settle to tasks, and • excessive physical movement. Impulsiveness • being unable to wait for a turn, • acting without thinking, • breaking any set rules, and • little or no sense of danger. If your child has ADHD, their symptoms usually become noticeable at around the age of five. ADHD can cause many problems in your child's life, and can often lead to underachievement at school, poor social interaction with other children and adults, and problems with discipline.“

Highlighted Articles

Identifying, Evaluating, Diagnosing, and Treating ADHD in Minority Youth (Journal of Attention Disorders 2008) “Untreated ADHD carries greater risk for substance abuse, impulsive behavior, and legal conflicts, whereas overdiagnosing and overtreating risk stigma associated with mental disorder, growth limitation, and tachycardia or hypertension. This dichotomy is even more perplexing for minority youth, many of whom are disadvantaged and lack access to care. Stressful living circumstances increase the likelihood a minority child will be diagnosed with ADHD (Barbarin & Soler, 1993). Fearing their child will be labeled, minority parents may hesitate to ask for help. … Cultural awareness during the assessment and history gathering is critical for the evaluation of minority youth. There are ADHD scales more appropriate for minority children. In addition, we are learning that children of diversity may not respond to all medications the same way Caucasian children do. The more we learn about genetic variations, the more we are likely to understand why medication alone is not effective in all cases and should not be considered the only treatment tool. Prosocial skills training, psychotherapy for the children, and support for the parents are all key if we want these children to truly succeed.”

ADHD in Children With Comorbid Conditions: Diagnosis, Misdiagnosis, and Keeping Tabs on Both (2007) "There is a complex interplay between ADHD and its commonly occurring comorbid psychiatric disorders, such as oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), conduct disorder (CD), anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder (BPD), and substance abuse. Comorbidity greatly influences presentation, diagnosis, and prognosis; complicates treatment; and significantly increases the morbidity and disease burden of ADHD.[6] When ADHD is comorbid with another psychiatric disorder, it is often the first disorder to develop, and children with severe ADHD symptoms have a higher likelihood of developing other psychiatric disorders.[1] When evaluating for comorbid conditions, the clinician should attempt to determine whether one "primary" condition can fully account for the most disabling and distressing symptoms. If a primary condition can fully explain such symptoms, then the other condition should not be diagnosed. For example, if a patient has ADHD symptoms only during episodes of bipolarity, ADHD would not be diagnosed. "

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Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

General Information

NEWS:

ADHD Appears To Increase Level Of Nicotine Dependence In Smokers “Young people with ADHD are not only at increased risk of starting to smoke cigarettes, they also tend to become more seriously addicted to tobacco and more vulnerable to environmental factors such as having friends or parents who smoke, according to a study from Massachusetts General Hospital reseachers.”

ADHD Increasingly Common in Older Kids

Adolescent Girls With ADHD Are At Increased Risk For Eating Disorders, Study Shows “ "Adolescent girls with ADHD frequently develop body-image dissatisfaction and may go through repeating cycles of binge eating and purging behaviors that are common in bulimia nervosa," said University of Virginia psychologist Amori Yee Mikami, who led the study. ADHD is a disorder that affects about 5 percent of school-age children, and three times more boys than girls. Symptoms include a short attention span, poor organization, excessive talking, disruptive and aggressive behavior, restlessness and irritability. Many children with ADHD suffer through a range of problems, from poor grades to poor relations with parents and teachers, and more than half have serious problems making friends.”

Call to ban food colour additives “FOOD safety regulators face demands to ban six artificial colourings that increase hyperactivity in children.”

CDC: About 5% of Kids Have ADHD

Couples With Children With ADHD At Risk Of Higher Divorce Rates, Shorter Marriages

Group Petitions FDA to Ban Some Food Colorings “Controlled studies conducted over three decades have shown that children's behavior can be worsened by some artificial dyes, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group noted the British government is successfully pressuring food manufacturers to switch to safer colorings.”

Head Injury in Young Kids May Predict ADHD Diagnosis “Very young children who sustain a head injury may be more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later, researchers report. The head injury is not a cause of ADHD, but rather a result of excessive risk-taking, according to the paper published in the Nov. 8 online edition of the British Medical Journal.”

Hyper Campers

Hyperactive Girls More Likely to Have Adjustment Problems in Early Adulthood “Girls aged 6 to 12 years with high hyperactivity, particularly those with high physical aggression, should be targeted for intensive interventions, according to the results of a study reported in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. "The co-occurrence of hyperactivity and conduct problems in childhood seems to increase the risk of early adulthood adjustment problems in males," write Nathalie Fontaine, PhD, from University College London, London, United Kingdom, and colleagues. "However, little is known about this topic in females." … Compared with other girls, those on a trajectory of HH and HPA and those on a trajectory of HH alone were significantly more likely to report poor psychosocial outcomes at age 21 years. Compared with the other participants, only the girls in the HH-HPA group were significantly more likely to report intimate relationships characterized by physical and psychological aggression, early pregnancy, and welfare assistance at age 21 years.”

Kids with ADHD may be more likely to bully“A new study shows that children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are almost four times as likely as others to be bullies. And, in an intriguing corollary, the children with ADHD symptoms were almost 10 times as likely as others to have been regular targets of bullies prior to the onset of those symptoms, according to the report in the February issue of the journal Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. … The results underscore the importance of observing how kids with ADHD symptoms interact with their peers, says study co-author Dr. Anders Hjern, a professor in pediatric epidemiology at the University of Uppsala in Stockholm. These kids might be making life miserable for their fellow students. Or it might turn out that the attention problems they’re exhibiting could be related to the stress of being bullied. "You can't learn if you're being bullied, if every day you're frightened of how you're going to be treated," says William Pollack, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “

Majority Of Teachers 'Have Difficulty Understanding And Managing ADHD', Royal College Of Psychiatrists “The research showed that most teachers had very little understanding of the genetic origins of ADHD, with only about 7% agreeing that it was a genetic disorder. The majority of teachers were also found to have limited understanding about the use of stimulant medication to treat ADHD, and about whether or not ADHD is being over-diagnosed. Worryingly, only 35% of teachers had received any training in understanding or managing ADHD behaviour. This is despite teachers playing a vital role in helping to diagnose and manage ADHD.”

Overweight in children and adolescents in relation to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: results from a national sample. (Pediatrics. 2008)

Parents 'need lessons about ADHD'

Study Raises Questions About Diagnosis, Medical Treatment Of ADHD“In adolescence, ADHD is generally associated with cognitive deficits, particularly with working memory and inhibition, which have been linked to overall intelligence and academic achievement, according to UCLA psychiatry professor Susan Smalley, who headed the research. Interestingly, the study showed that these deficits are only present in about half of adolescents diagnosed with ADHD. Part of the explanation may lie in the common method for diagnosing the disorder. ADHD is an extreme on a normal continuum of behavior that varies in the population, much like height, weight or IQ. Its diagnosis, and thus its prevalence, is defined by where health professionals "draw the line" on this continuum, based on the severity of the symptoms and overall impairment. However, children with cognitive deficits do not show increased levels of inattention or hyperactivity when compared with other children diagnosed with ADHD, the study found, suggesting that behavior-rating scales alone are not sensitive enough to differentiate between the two groups. Additional psychological testing is recommended to confirm the presence of cognitive impairments. Researchers also found surprising results regarding the effectiveness of medicine in treating ADHD. In contrast to children in United States, youth in northern Finland are rarely treated with medicine for ADHD, yet the 'look' of the disorder — its prevalence, symptoms, psychiatric comorbidity and cognition — is relatively the same as in the U.S., where stimulant medication is widely used. The researchers point out that this raises important issues about the efficacy of the current treatments of ADHD in dealing with the disorder's long-term problems.”

U.S. Kids Take More Psychotropic Drugs Than Europeans “American children are three times more likely to be prescribed psychotropic medications for conditions such as ADHD and bipolar disease than European children are, a new study finds. Differences in regulatory practices and cultural beliefs about the benefit of medication for emotional and behavioral problems may explain this dramatic difference, the U.S. researchers added. "There is significantly greater use of atypical antipsychotics and SSRI-type antidepressants for child mental health treatment in U.S. than in Western Europe," said lead researcher Julie Zito, from the pharmaceutical health services research department in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Maryland. "Since most of the use is 'off-label' -- without adequate evidence of benefits and risks, close monitoring should be considered when these medications are used." “

What Is ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?

ARTICLES:

APA 2008: ADHD

JOURNAL ARTICLES:

ADHD Characteristics: I. Concurrent Co-morbidity Patterns in Children & Adolescents. (Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. 2008) “CONCLUSIONS: Almost 2/3rd of ADHD children have impairing comorbid diagnoses; Hyperactive ADHD represents less than 10% of an ADHD sample; ODD is primarily associated with Hyperactive and Combined ADHD; and, MDDD may be a significant morbidity for ADHD youths from clinical samples.”

ADHD Symptoms and Associated Psychopathology in a Community Sample of Adolescents From the European North of Russia (Journal of Attention Disorders 2008)

ADHD symptoms and maturity - a study in primary school children. (Acta Paediatr. 2008)

Adolescents with Childhood ADHD and Comorbid Disruptive Behavior Disorders: Aggression, Anger, and Hostility. (Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2008) “Conclusion: Adolescents diagnosed with ADHD and comorbid disruptive behavior disorders during childhood report high levels of aggression associated with increased emotionality in the form of anger, but not hostile cognitions. These findings suggest that in addition to inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, emotional dysregulation may be an important component of ADHD, particularly as it presents in adolescence.”

Age-related changes in motor subtle signs among girls and boys with ADHD. (Neurology. 2008)

Alerting deficits in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Event-related fMRI evidence. (Brain Res. 2008)

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and video games: A comparative study of hyperactive and control children. (Eur Psychiatry. 2008) “CONCLUSION: While no differences concerning video game use were found, ADHD children exhibited more problems associated with videogame playing. It seems that a subgroup of ADHD children could be vulnerable to developing dependence upon video games.”

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in female offenders: prevalence, psychiatric comorbidity and psychosocial implications. (Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2008)

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and its comorbidities in women and girls: an evolving picture. (Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2008) “For some time, it has been held that women with ADHD are more likely to internalize symptoms and become anxious and depressed and to suffer emotional dysregulation than males with the disorder. Recent evidence confirms that girls with ADHD are 5.4 times more likely to be diagnosed with major depression and three times more likely to be treated for depression before their ADHD diagnosis. I also discuss eating disorders (particularly binge eating and bulimia) that recently have been linked to ADHD in girls and women. The disordered eating/ADHD connection is not difficult to understand but has important clinical and therapeutic implications that must not be overlooked.”

[Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and sleep disturbances. Results of an epidemiological study in schoolchildren in Gandia, Spain.] (An Pediatr (Barc). 2008)

Autism symptoms in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Familial trait which Correlates with Conduct, Oppositional Defiant, Language and Motor Disorders. (J Autism Dev Disord. 2008)

Comorbidity of adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder: prevalence and clinical correlates. (Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2008) “In conclusion, ADHD is a common comorbidity in bipolar patients, and it adversely affects the course of the disease and disrupts the social adjustment of the patients. Regular monitoring of ADHD will help to prevent problems and complications that could arise in the course of the disease, particularly in patients with early onset bipolar disorder.”

Comorbidity of Psychiatric Disorders and Parental Psychiatric Disorder of ADHD Children. (J Atten Disord. 2008) “Discussion: The clinical sample of ADHD children typically had at least one other psychiatric disorder, usually oppositional defiant disorder in boys and anxiety disorders in girls. The most common psychiatric disorder in the parents was mood disorder.”

Distractibility in Attention/Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): The Virtual Reality Classroom. (Child Neuropsychol. 2008)

Early histories of school-aged children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. (Child Dev. 2008) “Compared to the non-ADHD group, the ADHD group had higher (i.e., less favorable) scores on parent and teacher versions of the Child Behavior Checklist at all ages. Children in the ADHD group also had lower scores on cognitive and receptive language measures in preschool. The findings support the concept that ADHD is a cognitive as well as a behavioral disorder.”

Facial affect interpretation in boys with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. (Child Neuropsychol. 2008)

Handwriting performance in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). (J Child Neurol. 2008)

Is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom severity associated with tobacco use? (Am J Addict. 2008) “The results suggest that the number of ADHD symptoms is proportionally associated with tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use.”

Lifetime criminality among boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A prospective follow-up study into adulthood using official arrest records. (Psychiatry Res. 2008)

Mathematical learning disorder in school-age children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. (Can J Psychiatry. 2008)

Rate and predictors of divorce among parents of youths with ADHD. (J Consult Clin Psychol. 2008)

Self-esteem in children with attention and/or learning deficits: the importance of gender. (Acta Paediatr. 2008)

Sleep Problems in Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2008) “Conclusions Sleep problems in children with ADHD are common and associated with poorer child, caregiver, and family outcomes. Future research needs to determine whether management of sleep problems can reduce adverse outcomes.”

Very Low Birth Weight and Behavioral Symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Young Adulthood: The Helsinki Study of Very-Low-Birth-Weight Adults. (Am J Psychiatry. 2008)

Working Memory Deficits in Boys with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): The Contribution of Central Executive and Subsystem Processes. (J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2008)

Working memory in school-aged children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder combined type: Are deficits modality specific and are they independent of impaired inhibitory control? (J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2008)

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