What is ADHD anyways? ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It affects children, adolescents, and even adults. Often the person who is diagnosed with ADHD has trouble staying focused on one topic for extended periods of time. Often children and adolescents with ADHD have a hard staying focused in a classroom setting. Often they will miss part of what is being discussed in class because they were not focusing on what was being said, but instead zoning out or thinking about many other things. This article is very helpful in understanding ADHD a little better. In the section titled “Understanding ADHD is Key”, it says “Trevor Resnick, MD, chief of the neurology department at Miami Children’s Hospital and clinical associate professor of neurology at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine said there is no right way to tell a kid about ADHD. “The most important issue is that it is a chemical imbalance of the brain chemical dopamine and when that imbalance is present, a person may experience some of the ADHD symptoms.”
So now that we have a little knowledge of what ADHD is, the question I want to tackle is how exactly should doctors go about helping people with this disorder?
My brother and my boyfriend both have a form of ADHD. Neither of them struggle with hyperactivity, but they both say they have trouble focusing in school without a type of stimulant drug such as Adderall or Vyvanse. They both agree that it helps them, but it also makes them feel a little odd. Often my brother will lose his appetite when he takes Vyvanse, but that is one of the common side effects. My boyfriend doesn’t lose his appetite, but will often be very to himself and quiet when he takes his medicine (a form of Adderall). I have often wondered if taking the medicine causes just as many issues, but just smaller ones. They both have decided that they only need to take it during the school year, because focusing in a classroom for an hour or more is extremely difficult without it, but they can get through shorter, every day, activities without it.
So should the answer be giving people drugs to help or should the answer be a more natural method? Are the drugs helping or harming the person more? In both this site and this one there is mention of other ways to handle ADHD other than stimulant drugs, or things to go along with the drugs. Below is a chart from a website called ADHD Institute. The chart along with the site explain other things that can help with dealing with ADHD.
It is known that these stimulants, such as Adderall, can have negative side effects, but theyre different depending on the person. Who can say what is best for what person. There is constant research being done on ADHD and ways to treat the symptoms that come along with it. Should this just be a trial and error per case to see what works best? Its especially hard to categorize all people who have ADHD because there are so many forms and levels of severity of the disorder. Should a patient start with the prescribed medicine and if it causes too many issues, try non-pharmacological therapies, or start the other way around? Often the person is told where to start with treatment according to how severe their case is, but is that how we should handle it? Shouldn’t there be an easier way than trial and error? Hopefully, research will eventually help us find that easier way.
This article was really beneficial in furthering my understanding of exactly what ADHD is. I sometimes inappropriately joke (partially in all seriousness) that I feel as though I may have a form of ADD. I have always felt that in general, most people have a hard time concentrating for long periods of time and that medicine may indeed “benefit” everyone, but may not necessarily be the answer. I have a strong fear that we may be over diagnosing diseases such as ADHD and are consequently creating personality altering medications in an effort to make personalities more “ideal”in terms of society. Upon researching this theory I found that I am clearly not the only one with these worries due to the significant amount of scholarly articles on this subject matter. One article in particular stated that last year, 1 in 9 children were diagnosed with ADHD, a huge increase from the previous decade. Most people believe that a certain low percentage clearly have enough symptoms for an ADHD diagnosis.Sometimes diagnoses is much more of a judgment call in which behavioral therapy could be used as an appropriate treatment plan. Finally, there is a percentage on the borderline of the disease who may be misdiagnosed. Due to the negative side effects of some medications that you adressed, this type of misdiagnoses is very worrying.
ADHD is a very confusing topic to me. Everyone assumes they have ADHD because they have difficulty focusing on one thing at a time, but is this true. Many students, especially in college feel that medicines like “Adderall” actually helps them study even when they don’t suffer from this illness. Is the medicine actually helping them or is it a placebo? Here’s a little bit about the medicine Adderall! http://www.drugs.com/adderall.html
Interestingly enough, In my senior year of high school my english class spent a good deal of time debating how to deal with ADHD. In our country it seems that there has been an epidemic of kids who “have ADHD”, and some would argue that we, as a society, are prescribing too soon. One of the facts that people are beginning to study, is if a lack of recess will give kids ADHD like symptoms. I know that when I was in elementary school I lived for recess and needed to run and play to get my energy out, so now if schools are cutting down on recess do the kids actually have ADHD? Here is an interesting article to check out on the topic: http://www.takepart.com/feature/2015/01/19/ritalin-recess-adhd