Over the last decade being diagnosed with ADHD has been on the rise among children in the United States. Psychiatrists and Doctors have been handing out Adderall, Vyvanse, and other medications so frequently that researchers began to question if the disease is real or if people were just being medicated for no reason. Don’t get them wrong, clearly some children or people may be in desperate need of the medication- but is it being overly prescribed or being over diagnosed? Some people even believe ADHD is a myth, being some made up disease in today’s generation and that is something that sparks my attention.
Researchers are unsure of an exact cause to ADHD at this point in time but have been doing their best to brainstorm all of the possible ideas behind it. Although this could lead to the Texas Sharp Shooter Fallacy by trying to pick the most significant answer after an overwhelming amount of information is placed in front of the researchers, it is still a start at finding an answer. There are many ideas as to where ADHD derives from, but some specifics are genes, food, environment, and injury. In respect to genes, a child with ADHD is said to be four times as likely to have a relative with it as well which could be a correlation to it being genetic. Researchers have also began to look more closely at dopamine because they have noticed the levels of it are lower in children with ADHD, but have not found much much evidence behind it. In regards to food a lot of researchers believe sugar has effects on behavior. However, this suggestion does not have a lot of evidence in the research field and can’t be used as a scapegoat in the question of ADHD. The link between the two is not strong at all and can be a fluke no matter the amount of people who want to believe it is the issue. Along with some environmental issues like smoking and lead exposure or some brain injuries there are many other ideas behind the cause of ADHD that researchers are just starting to touch base on. Since all of these are up for so much question I can see why people may believe the disease is a fluke or myth.
In respects to people who have ADHD it has recently been concluded that in 15% of high school age children the amount being medicated for the disorder has soared to 3.5 million today compared to 600,000 in 1990. Is this all legitamate? Dr. Conners at Duke University says it is “anything but an epidemic but nearly something that is preposterous”. Researchers claim that it does truly affect 5% of children and they definitely need to be medicated in order to succeed, but at this point there may just be to much. ADHD is now the second most long-term diagnosis given to children, following closely behind asthma. ADHD has became a money maker and a disease that parents make conclusions for way too quickly based on small symptoms. It is seen to be a disease diagnosed way too often now, and that is why people are questioning the legitimacy of it. Is the disease just a false positive among many children in today’s age just so the FDA and doctor’s could make revenue off of it?
Overall, there aren’t many legit findings on where ADHD derives or much back up on how legit it is. Although I have seen first hand legit cases and believe it is a real thing, I think it is over diagnosed and is being used for revenue among the FDA and doctors. With the huge increase in the amount of people medicated it is hard not to question it, and truly has me wondering if ADHD has become way too big of an epidemic.
I think the major problem with ADHD is that it exists, but it is not as prevalent as the doctors today are making it seem. 11% of children ages 4-17 are diagnosed with ADHD in America today That is 6.4 million children diagnosed with ADHD and a lot of them are on medication for it. I think that the real problem is that parents don’t want to have to deal with kids just being kids. Kids are naturally curious and excited about anything and everything. So of course there are going to be children that, when forced to sit down and pay strict attention, are going to have a hard time focusing. I don’t have ADHD and I hate having to sit down and give all of my attention to one thing instead of doing something else. And I’m 18 years old and in college! Kids at such a young age should not be put on a medication that makes them too tired to be a kid. Because thats what these medications do. They make kids tired which forces them to sit still. Before prescribing a child medication, we should really look into if it’s a necessary practice or if we are just trying to keep kids from being kids.
To a certain extent I do believe that ADHD is real. I have a cousin who suffers from ADHD and his medication actually comes him down. But I don’t believe that ADHD is a money maker where doctors take advantage of patients and misdiagnosis them. I think its is more that parents assume their kid is having symptoms of ADHD so they take them to the doctor demanding for medication. Just because some kids are hyper during certain situations doesn’t always correlate to them having ADHD. It can be true that a lot of doctors do over diagnosis patients to increase their revenue but I honestly think that ADHD is something more and more children are suffering from as the years go on. Here is an article that confirms that ADHD is a real things but it also goes into detail on whether or not it is over diagnosed:http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-mind/mood/article/adhd-overdiagnosed
I’ve wondered about this same topic, because it seems like (more often than not) stricter parenting could take care of the smaller symptoms you referred to that lead doctors to “diagnose” a child with ADHD. “ADHD is now the second most long-term diagnosis given to children, following closely behind asthma” – that fact seems absolutely insane. I agree that diagnosis and medication are necessary but only in some cases. An increasingly common problem throughout all of medicine is that doctors throw medication at the smallest problem rather than looking for un-medicated methods for resolving the issue at hand. Check out this document to see arguments and counterarguments on this topic. This was a great post, and great application of concepts we’ve been discussing!