Is Adult ADD For Real?

An analysis of the US News And World Report article

Published on April 26, 2004 By mrperky In Health & Medicine

The nurse practitioner at work flagged me down yesterday to tell me of the recent article in the US News And World Report about ADD in Adults. I haven't seen the print version yet, and I presume (perhaps incorrectly) that the web version is verbatim the same. The article can be read online here.

My prior memories of the USNAWR magazine were from High School and College, where I used it to research information for debates, research papers, and the like. I am unaware of what academic standing the magazine enjoys, or even whether the magazine leans left or right. If you have opinions about the magazine itself (and not this article), please feel free to reply and let me know.

The article in question is recent and relevant to this blog. Already in the brief lifespan of this blog, there has been debate as to whether ADD is a physiological problem or a psychological problem. Is ADD a treatable disorder and a physicial malfunction within the body that can be treated or coped with, or are people who claim to have ADD merely lazy, disorganized, and unwilling to accept responsibility for their own shortcomings? In "Driven To Distraction" Marianne Szegedy-Maszak leans towards the physiological point of view. She reveals the statistics that over 7 million children are "diagnosed" with ADD, and that nearly half of children with ADD never grow out of it. ADD is also the most diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children in the United States.

The number of children with ADD is so large that is almost offensive. With so many children being affected, how can we call this a disorder? Instead it should just be a fact of life -- some children are argumentative, hyperactive, and distractable. There are just kids for crying out loud. Right? It is this attitude that causes the general public to look poorly on adults who claim to have ADD. Unfortunately, while Szegedy-Maszak goes far in explaining ADD and it's effects on children, she only anecdotally explains the relevance to adults.

In stating the condition in the way that she has, Szegedy-Maszak has only further fueled the suspicion that the public has towards ADD and the treatments involved. There already is a large backlash against stimulant treatment in children, even though this treatment is shown to be effective.

Szegedy-Maszak does finally end the article with a positive message, that ADD sometimes brings blessings with it instead of just curses. Quick wit, high energy, and the ability to make associative leaps are all know ADD characteristics.

But don't just take my word for it. Read the article and decide for yourself. And then comment

Comments

MisfitChicks

on Apr 26, 2004

I'm a probable sufferer of AADD. I can report that I often times need to have 8 things going on, cause my mind tends to jump from one project to the other with no pretext or reason.
However, I would not want to be medicated. I like being a little hyper active. Keeps me in relative good shape. And I handle stress better than some people.

I like being a mess. It's who I am.

mikimouse

on Apr 26, 2004

not real. made up for the drug companies. Be real. Is anyone really ADD? Or bored, dumb, or simply not interested in whatever is making it look like they're ADD?

Sherye Hanson

on Apr 26, 2004

There are certainly differences among people in their ability to concentrate, their memory, and their ability to learn certain things. When my son was young, I could only tell him one thing to do at a time, otherwise he would forget. I could give a list to my daughters and they could remember them all. My nephew couldn't learn how to read very easily. But he could draw complicated mazes in the shape of mountains, etc. My theory is that ADD isn't so much a disability, but a different way of processing. Since the majority of children learn a certain way, then those that don't are hard to teach in a classroom. I think that certain children would learn better if they were given a hammer and nails, or a basketball. Others learn better through art, but since most education is through lectures and words, then those who learn through different means do poorly in school.

On the other hand, there are children whose activity level is way beyond what most adults can cope with. Others are depressed, and some do nothing but daydream. Medication can help with those children, but ritalin is oversubscribed in private schools and underprescribed in poor schools.

mrperky

on Apr 26, 2004

Sherye, I am interested in gathering documentation on how Ritalin is overprescribed in schools. I've heard anecdotal evidence on how it happens, but I'd like to start seeing more concrete evidence. Do you have some web links that I can read to learn more?

mrperky

on Apr 26, 2004

mikimouse, I almost moderated you as Trolling, but I'll bite just in case you weren't.

Knowing that there is a large national discussion about ADD and ADD in Adults, could it be possible that actually _is_ a grain of truth, even if it's a tiny one, to the thought that ADD is real?

I think that there is a valid disorder in behind ADD. However, like you, I believe that it has been severly hyped by the drug companies, oversold by feel-good physicians, and over prescribed by schools who want quiet and productive little children (but mostly quiet). If this is true, then it is truly unfortunate to those that actually suffer from this. Some people are suffering with it themselves and some children are suffering needlessly because of our misperceptions of the disorder.

pegb2

on Apr 26, 2004

I am a strong believer in Add and AADD. My brother is a bonefide candidate. He had so many problems growing up. It took his doctor wife to get him tested and on the track to being able to control his hyperactivity and fast paced brain. He is not on reitalin, but on somehting else (don't remember what) but I can tell the difference when he forgets his meds.

I do, however, think that ADD is over diagnosed or improperly diagnosed. It's simpler for parents and teachers who deal with so many hyper children to give them drugs.

6969jimbo6969

on Apr 26, 2004

Thanks for posting this so articulately and honestly.

I have been working on a book about ADD and the infuriatingly stupid "War on Drugs." The hypocrisy and doublethink necessary to maintain those two things---a campaign to prescribe highly addictive drugs on the one hand, and a campaign to stop people from using anything from plants on the other---is just too bizarre for me to manage. I've also finished a book of short stories, "Drugs, Guns, and Living in America" for which I am seeking a publisher, to little avail thus far, but who knows? And I've completed a screenplay, shot in flashback, the contemporary "bookends" of which are about a young boy diagnosed with ADD and a mother and sister struggling to determine what to do about the situation. It's a pretty intense story, based on a true incident that happened to a friend of my ex-wive's, in which she almost received a lobotomy, circa 1960 for what today we would call ADD. Ritalin is comparable for most of its recipients to a highly focused chemical lobotomy.

As to the rationale behind Ritalin, in addition to profit, what seems clearest to me are failures of human relations or any other approach to management to deal with the real diversity of the human condition and the inevitable longing that many of us feel for breaks and changes from the one-track-mind that current business practice wants for its workers, while extolling creativity disingenuously as the missing quality in the American workplace at the same time that SOP, starting in elementary school with Ritalin, is conform or die.

Sherye Hanson

on Apr 26, 2004

I just looked on the internet under overprescribed ritalin and found several links. I know that there was a magazine article a year or so ago stating that private school students were overprescribed and poor students underprescribed. I think you'll probably have a better chance of finding what you want.

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