What is ADHD? | LDAO

What is ADHD? | LDAO: "



Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurobiological disorder that can be noticed in the preschool or early grades of school. ADHD affects between 5-12% of the population or about 1 or 2 students in every classroom.



ADHD is a medical diagnosis that is organized along two symptom clusters. They are:



Hyperactive-impulsive symptoms

Hyperactivity: difficulty regulating one’s activity level – for example constant movement in chair, getting up and down from chair, climbing, or running around when others are seated; also may manifest as talking so much that others can’t get a turn in.



Impulsivity: difficulty inhibiting behaviour – for example acting quickly without thinking.

Inattention symptoms

Inattention: difficulty attending to the task at hand – for example frequent daydreaming, lost in another world or easily sidetracked by what’s going on around.

Based on these two clusters of symptoms, there are three subtypes of ADHD:



1) Predominantly hyperactive subtype

2) Predominantly inattentive subtype  (sometimes called ADD)

3) Combined subtype (with both hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive symptoms)



Research has shown that school problems tend to be associated with the combined and inattentive subtypes. Students with these two subtypes tend to struggle more academically, and are more likely to fail a grade or receive lower grades than their non-ADHD classmates. By contrast, children with the predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive subtype may do well academically, but often experience disruptive and oppositional behaviours. For children who have combined subtype both academic and behavioural problems are an issue.



ADHD looks different in girls. Symptoms in girls are less noticeable than in boys. As a result, more boys than girls are diagnosed with ADHD (about 3:1). But both girls and boys with ADHD experience impairments with social skills and academics.



ADHD is a life-long condition that changes and evolves as a person ages. Adults frequently experience a decrease in the hyperactivity and impulsivity elements, but the inattention persists.



ADHD runs in families and has a genetic basis. Children with ADHD are 2 to 8 times more likely to have a sibling with ADHD or a parent with ADHD.



Individuals with ADHD may have many positive traits that are directly tied to their active, impulsive minds:



Creativity – People with ADD excel at thinking outside of the box, brainstorming, and finding creative solutions to problems. Because of their flexible way of thinking about things, they tend to be more open-minded, independent, and ready to improvise.



Enthusiasm and spontaneity – People with ADD are free spirits with lively minds—qualities that makes for good company and engrossing conversation. Their enthusiasm and spontaneous approach to life can be infectious.



A quick mind – People with ADD have the ability to think on their feet, quickly absorb new information (as long as it’s interesting), and multitask with ease. Their rapid-fire minds thrive on stimulation. They adapt well to change and are great in a crisis.



High energy level – People with ADD have loads of energy. When their attention is captured by something that interests them, they can have virtually unlimited stamina and drive."



'via Blog this'

How ADHD Affects Obesity, Weight and Healthy Eating Habits | Psychology Today

This is something I identify very well with.  Since going on my medication 2 weeks ago, I have lost 10lbs.  Now, given that I was already seeking to eat better, and improve my lifestyle, this would make sense.  However, I have been trying this on and off for well over 15 years.  One of the side-effect of Concerta is meant to be loss of appetite.  While I do find my cravings throughout the day are diminished, I also feel that my impulsivity to grab food to stimulate myself are no longer there.  I feel that there is probably a lot to this concept and feel this speaks to me with regards to my own personal eating struggles.

How ADHD Affects Obesity, Weight and Healthy Eating Habits

Overweight and Under the Radar: ADHD and Eating

More Than a Full Plate

One common, under-addressed symptom of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is its impact on eating.  A new study in the Western Journal of Nursing Research suggests the possibility of screening anyone with a chronic weight issue for ADHD since one in five adults who were obese turned out to have multiple symptoms of it, compared with around one in thirty in the general adult population. Previous studies have also found that children and adults with ADHD are significantly more likely to be overweight. With so many millions of people affected by ADHD, any risk of increased obesity influences the health of huge numbers of people. Is the connection with ADHD affecting you or someone you care about?

The link between ADHD and poor eating habits isn't surprising when you consider that it is a disorder of executive function, a set of cognitive skills which act as our brain manager. Executive function impacts almost every aspect of living, encompassing our ability to self-regulate, organize, plan, prioritize, and anticipate the future. Eating is only one of many facets of ordinary life influenced by ADHD, yet typically flies under the radar.

The Makings of Self-Control

Executive function deficits get in the way of everything from noticing when we are full to making healthy food choices in the midst of a stressful day. For kids and adults, impulsivity leads well-intentioned diets out the window in a moment, making it that much harder to walk past a MacDonald's or avoid the pile of donuts left by the coffee machine. Executive function affects the ability to judge time, perhaps to see that today's ‘exception' is part of a larger pattern. It's not a rare splurge, it's the same as four times this week already for ourselves or for our children.

Studies looking at eating habits in general, not specific to ADHD, have shown that distracted eating - eating while watching television, playing games, or simply daydreaming - increases calorie intake. Stress and anxiety, especially when amplified by ADHD, can push anybody of any age to reach for food. And then when a new diet or lifestyle is needed for a teen or young adult, executive function skills are required to develop and stick with the plan.

Guiding children with ADHD becomes even more important than it does for other kids, from behavioral patterns around food to the choices and the brands they encounter at home, and learn to prefer. ADHD causes some children, unless taught otherwise, to unknowingly overeat at every sitting or always grab an extra cookie from the pile. They may be less tolerant ofhunger, quicker to raid the cabinet, melt down near the cash register candy, or experience any of a host of related moments that add up to a longer-term problem. Recognizing all the myriad ways executive function influences eating allows for a deeper perspective and suggests new possibilities for change.

A Hidden Ingredient

As a starting point, we must look for and identify the influence of ADHD in the first place. When children with ADHD overeat or begin to gain weight, we can dig deeper into their ADHD, looking for ways to manage it better. If an undiagnosed child struggles chronically around food, we should consider the possibility of ADHD, looking for symptoms in other areas of life. Other studies of obese adults have showed more than in four to be affected, and the rate in children could prove even higher as more kids have ADHD than grown-ups.

Many parents of children with ADHD have symptoms of the diagnosis as well. With adult ADHD it becomes that much harder to maintain long-term plans and healthier lifestyles, so the whole family may need outside support. Often these parents battle their own difficulties with self-regulation around nutrition, from how they manage the family pantry to their own eating style. Unaddressed, parental issues increase the risk that their kids will struggle with the same.

Parents are concerned about weight loss as a side effect to ADHDmedication and rightfully so, although in practice most kids do fine. In fact, medical treatment of ADHD can lead to healthier eating habits through a decrease in impulsivity and distractibility and all the rest. Kids who start out overweight sometimes seem to lose weight only until reaching a more appropriate one for their height, and then resume typical growth. In some situations improved eating habits, not the potential medication side effect of appetite suppression, may explain their initial weight loss.

Recipe for Success

It's not only about what we serve or when we serve it, it's about the example we set. We can choose to model only eating when eating, instead of staying half-engaged in other activities, such as reading the newspaper, watching television, working, or daydreaming. When at the dinner table we can leave our food alone while in conversation, pausing instead of mechanically lifting our fork again and again. We can practice putting our utensils on the plate between bites, serving ourselves on smaller plates, or never eating directly from the bag. Our children watch, and learn.

We might even notice how we habitually shop. Maybe decide not to keep challenging foods in the house at all, or only to buy them when consciously deciding it's time for a treat. If a child raids the pantry, constantly debates about having more junk food, or refuses healthy snacks for the chips they know are available ... don't have the overly enticing items on the shelf. We do the shopping, we can choose not to have them around.

The practice of routinely having family dinner has been linked to healthier habits, as well as fostering various emotional and behavioral benefits, but keep in mind that having the television on during dinner reverses much of that. In the midst of a hectic afternoon or butting up against larger behavioral issues elsewhere in life, we may give in to complaining about food, or use food to calm irritated children. Or conversely, we might stick to a different routine: Two cookies after dinner and no junk the rest of the day, dessert only on Saturday, or whatever else best fits our lifestyle. Establishing these healthy habits early often heads off troubles before they start.

The Whole Enchilada

So often, we compartmentalize troubles related to ADHD: My daughter has a hard time focusing and is more reactive than I like, and overeats and misplaces her homework all the time. Maybe you wrestle with a similar set of difficulties as a parent. We often judge our kids or ourselves for being ‘bad' or to be failing in some way: How come this looks so easy for all his classmates, and is so hard for my son? We scramble to address ADHD through hodgepodge solutions targeting each bump in the road (or mountain) separately. Yet in reality these all reflect the same condition, the same executive function deficits.

Plenty more may be going on around food for any individual, rarely is it a simple relationship. Beyond the range of struggles typical for many of us, anyone may experience an eating disorder, mental health concern, or a difficult family situation that affects their relationship with food. And this entire article is written from the perspective of a country where famine is rare, where most of us have options; when food is truly scarce, everything must change.

While there may be layers and layers of emotional and behavioral habit contributing, observing eating through the lens of ADHD allows for a deeper exploration, instead of chasing only the end point - eat less and exercise more. That's an answer, but executive function lets it happen. For anyone with ADHD it may seem weight control and five or ten different things are going ‘wrong' at once, yet executive function ties them all together. While not a miracle cure, all will be easier managed when we acknowledge this often overlooked element in the recipe of life.

How ADHD Affects Obesity, Weight and Healthy Eating Habits | Psychology Today:

Study shows brain connections slower to develop in youth with ADHD - The Washington Post

Study shows brain connections slower to develop in youth with ADHD - The Washington Post:

A very interesting recent article in the article I have come across, and felt it important to share.  

Many children and teenagers with ADHD may find it difficult to turn in homework — they get too distracted to complete it, they lose the pens and pencils needed to do it. Their daydreams constantly interrupt their thoughts. They re-read the same sentences several times because they can’t seem to stay focused as well as their peers. They fidget. They touch everything. Some talk — nonstop.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a condition that not long ago some claimed was made up. Some still do. It remains difficult to diagnose and treat. Doctors and psychologists use batteries of verbal and written tests as well as checklists to evaluate behavior. But in recent years, scientists have been able to see things associated with ADHD by looking at the brains of people who have it.

Most recently, scientists at the University of Michigan looked into the minds of more than 750 youth and discovered that those with ADHD lag behind their peers when measuring how their brains form connections between key networks. For instance, those with ADHD have less-developed connections between a part of the brain that controls internal-directed thought, such as daydreaming, and a part that controls external-directed tasks, such as homework, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That lag in connection development may help explain why youth with ADHD struggle to stay focused, according to the news release.

University of Michigan psychiatry professor Chandra Sripada, lead author of the study, told The Washington Post that the transition between “internally focused modes of attention” and “externally focused modes of attention” work somewhat like a seesaw.  In an “immature” brain, the transitions are poorly executed. As the brain matures, the transitions become more graceful. “Those with ADHD, their minds swing back and forth too abruptly,” he said.

“The default network is maturing very rapidly between youth and adulthood,” Sripada told NPR. “It’s neither a hero nor villain — you need to be able to turn it on appropriately and turn it off appropriately.”

For the study, researchers examined brain scans of 275 young people ages 7 to 21 with ADHD and 481 others without it to see how each group’s brain networks communicate. Sripada said the idea that there is a lag in the maturation of the brain of people with ADHD has been shown through structural studies. His study looked at the function — what the brain is actually doing.

The research may help scientists study the course of ADHD from childhood to adulthood. In some cases, children seem to out-grow the disorder; in other cases, the disorder follows them. Similar studies on brain network maturation may help explain the difference, according to study. Eventually, Sripada said, these types of studies may help provide a marker that will make it possible for doctors to use objective tools such as brain scans to aid in ADHD diagnosis.

“The results of this study set the stage for the next phase of this research, which is to examine individual components of the networks that have the maturational lag,” Sripada said. “This study provides a coarse-grained understanding, and now we want to examine this phenomenon in a more fine-grained way that might lead us to a true biological marker, or neuromarker, for ADHD.”

To help develop a neuromarker, Sripada is conducting two follow-up studies — one for youth and one for adults.

I finally got ADHD medication

Last week was my first full week on ADHD medication.  I would say, within the first hour and a half, I noticed something different.  I wrote my wife immediately and told her that "I don't know if it's the placebo effect or if this is really working, but something is different."

When I woke up, I took my medication as soon as I could.  I had my prescription the night before, and the pharmacist said to me, if you take this now, you won't sleep...so, I had to wait until the morning until I could test myself out.

Back tracking a little, I have been a long term ADD ADHD denier.  I was someone who was quick to criticize others for their diagnosis, self identifying and all else.  I haven't delved deep enough to fully understand where all of this negativity comes from, but I would have to say, I grew up in an environment where this was the standard and right perspective on these types of issues.

Apparently from Grade 3, I had been identified as someone who should have been tested.  All through school, I was the kid who could always have done better if he only applied himself.  I was a good kid, but hard to control.  I was respectful, but got into trouble.  I had to sit at the front of the school bus, as I would never sit down and was too rambunctious, I had to sit behind a divider in one of my classes at the front of class, separated from the rest of class, so as to behave and focus.  Again, all the time, I was successful in class, and was able to fake my way through most things.

I also happened to be left-handed, and felt that my messiness, my extremely poor hand writing, my confusion, frustrations, awkwardness, lack of coordination, accident proneness and all else could be chalked up to some kind of right-brained left-brained discussion.  I had trouble with some subjects, in particular English and my writing.  This was always blamed on my taking French immersion at an early age and missing out on the fundamentals.  I bought these two excuses for my life, and still feel these excuses influence me...as again, I am a recent accepter of ADHD for me.

Over the years, I had been picked out of classes to take "studying" classes, speed reading test groups, organization and all else.  As I look back, a large part of me wonders why I was among a group of others who clearly suffered from other forms of learning difficulties.

By 2008, I was not feeling very good about myself.  I was in between work...again (I plan to delve into the job hopping in future posts).   I finally thought to myself, "Why am I so lazy and stupid?".  And crazy me typed this into a Google search.  Well, sure enough, up pops You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy? Obviously, after reading a quick review, I was away grabbing the book.  Now I never read it all....big surprise, I read a very large chunk of it.  I identified so well with all that it was saying, that I quickly booked time with my Doctor and thought I was about to be quickly cured, and finally, this guy that I was not supposed to be would be fixed.
Well, long story short, I was believed and referred to meet with a couple diagnostics type people.  I believe the first person was a psychometrist, who had me fill out the extended version of the many online quizzes (this was my most recent test location). From there, it was identified that there was a high likelihood of having ADHD (this wasn't exactly shared with me).  So, I was recommended to see the local psychologist.  Unfortunately, there was about a 3 month wait on that.  When I finally got to see the psychologist, I was in a better state of mind.  I was on top of the world and had just the day or so before returned from extremely engaging work overseas.  I took some more quizzes, and when I met with the psychologist, my recollection was that he said, "Well, you've graduated high school, you've graduated college, and now you are working.  The way I see it, is that you have discovered your own techniques to make your life work, and I would not think that you need medication."
I went out of the meet feeling fully fulfilled.  I felt like everything in the world was fine, and I wasn't crazy and didn't need medication to be a normal participant in society.
Shortly after that experience, my work life took another nose dive, as I was let go from my contract work the day after Lehman collapsed.  So, for the next while, I took life on myself and thought to myself that I am completely normal, and the way I behave is normal and there is nothing really wrong with me.
Several years go by. I meet a great girl. Marry, start a family, get involved in another business and struggle to juggle everything in the air.  I suffered.  I suffered greatly.  There were days that were really tough.  "Everyone has tough days" I thought, but these were extended and long and tough.
Long story short, I ultimately went in and started to get medication for depression (Effexor).  I was really suffering.  My home life was suffering.  I was a mess. I was always short with those closest to me.  I was scatter brained. I never followed through with simple tasks. I was a poor listener, an interrupter an over talker a procrastinator and most importantly, not dependable.
Still, I never went back for a diagnosis of ADHD, after all, I was the furthest thing from hyperactive!
I just wanted to sleep and hide.
Over time, my wife and I began to see a counselor together.  I felt so good after sharing, that I asked to come back on my own.  I did this several times, before the topic of a past feeling or a subtle feeling of having ADHD came up.  It was like I had buried the whole belief that it was a real thing and that I could actually possibly be suffering from it.  So again, I went to the library and grabbed the first ADHD book I could find.  The first page was a list of positive attributes of people with ADHD. I felt so amazing reading that page! It was like a house was lifted off of my shoulders.  I so identified with it, and continued reading (of course I did not finish it either, despite taking it out several times).
I went online. Read quick articles. Watched videos and other clips.  I was looking to treat it myself without medication.  I was still really against it.
Then I saw a video by Dr. Russell Barkely that changed my perspective and over a 4 day vacation, I made the decision "why not try it" and "what's to lose".  So, upon my return, I booked a visit with my doctor.  My doctor was on holiday, and the backup suggested I see the psychometrist again before medication.  I agreed.  I called in 2 weeks later for my appointment, and they said they were taking appointments 4-5 months out.  My lack of patience (obv) got the better of me.  I had decided I was going to try medication.  I new I had this issue.  I had taken subsequent tests online and came in off the charts.  I was ready to try something, and almost felt unable to function without a drastic change (as reported in the earlier video I discussed).
I called in to the doctors office again.  This time I saw my doctor.  He again said he wanted to wait, as of course, I am on other medication and he wanted to wait to see if the antidepressants might help the ADHD symptoms.  Reluctantly, he had me do another written test.  Upon his return, he changes his tune and excused himself and said that I for sure should try and be on the medication.  He gave me a prescription for Concerta and personal his info to contact him if there were any issues or complications, and wished me well.
A day later, I was up and at it.  I had not desire to sleep all day, I took the garbage out, go the mail, go the toddler to preschool, and caught up on all outstanding emails and various phone calls I had been holding off on.  I opened up mail.  I went through items, and I looked at the clock and it was only 10am!
Life was feeling in control.  I am so excited and optimistic with what my new world can bring, and I look forward to sharing these experiences with everyone who might find themselves just a little bit in my shoes.
Wishing everyone all the best, and feel great just sharing this with everyone now.