"TikTok trends or the pandemic? What’s behind the rise in ADHD diagnoses"

[flashbac]

"The striking overlap between ADHD symptoms and garden variety “pandemic brain” only compounds common misunderstandings of the former. Simply, ADHD symptoms can look and sound a whole lot like the struggles that define many people’s everyday workflows, which are so often fragmented by push notifications and digital dopamine hits. Who doesn’t have trouble multitasking or following through with tasks? And who isn’t fighting the urge to impulse-scroll social media during the particularly dull moments of any given afternoon? In the past two years, these difficulties have only become more pronounced."

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/02/tiktok-trends-or-the-pandemic-whats-behind-the-rise-in-adhd-diagnoses

What do you think?

@Winterhail - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2958516/

There is a lot of research out there, you won’t have to look far to find the probable answers to some of your questions. Come back and discuss if you like.

The psychologist mentioned in that article references bored and disruptive kids in the classroom. I don’t think anyone would agree that’s it’s helpful to pathologise ‘normal’ behaviour in children. But that’s not what ADHD is.

Some kids with ADHD might be bored or disruptive. Some kids without ADHD might be bored or disruptive. The two are not synonymous.

Plus ND girls are usually the opposite.

I think the reason for the increase in people being diagnosed is pretty simple: there’s more awareness and information available now about what ADHD is.

Plus more kids being diagnosed means more adults realising they may also be ND.

It doesn’t people are making it up based on watching a Tik Tok. It’s just that it was under-diagnosed previously.

Also @Winterhail - in response to the article you shared, let’s look at another view of this - (and let’s remember that, even if he had been quoted in context, he was merely giving his opinion, backed up by nothing solid at all):

In 2012, Kagan sparked controversy regarding his views on the field of psychology, and specifically how ADHD diagnoses were being applied. Following the publication of his book Psychology's Ghosts: The Crisis in the Profession and the Way Back — which is primarily a criticism of current psychology practices — Kagan was interviewed by the German magazine Der Spiegel. In the interview, he expresses his concern that doctors and other mental health practitioners are over-diagnosing conditions like ADHD. According to Kagan, this is partly due to the financial incentive psychiatrists, the pharmaceutical industry, and researchers have to diagnose children with a mental illness and prescribe them medication.

The most controversial quotes from his interview come when he describes ADHD as “an invention” and attributes the high number of ADHD diagnoses to “fuzzy diagnostic practices.” He goes on to address several other issues he has with the profession, including the way anxiety and depression diagnoses are provided.

His remarks, specifically those about ADHD, created a stir within the psychological community and prompted many to respond by citing research and studies that have led to a consensus in the profession that the disorder is a legitimate diagnosis. He does not expand on his comments much, though; and this is one of the only places he’s publicly discussed his thoughts on ADHD. So, it’s entirely possible that these comments were abbreviated, taken out of context, or not completely representative of his feelings on the subject.

While Kagan has influenced much of our current understanding regarding child development, his comments do not represent the field of psychology — and they run counter to the consensus of the psychology community that ADHD is a legitimate diagnosis.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that greatly affects an individual’s ability to function. It can impact a child’s education, social life, and even physical health, and it will often remain a concern into adulthood. Common symptoms of ADHD in adults include trouble staying organized, lack of focus, time blindness, and problems dealing with stress.

😂😂😂Chilli I seriously laughed out at Winterhail's comment 'leave yourself a note.'
If only it was that easy. I'm sure nobody with ADHD has ever thought of that idea.

Unbelievable. Clearly has no clue about ADHD. @Winterhail you need to do some serious research before coming out with such ignorant/laughable and quite frankly dismissive/offensive suggestions!

@Indoctro - Also, my psychiatrist, who specialises in ADHD, told me that he thinks that around 50% of adults diagnosed with anxiety actually have ADHD. If he is correct, then there are so many people missing out on medication that could actually.

You haven't come up with any real suggestion of what's wrong with writing yourself a note and acting upon it.
All you've done is mock a perfectly legitimately suggestion. Why is it so difficult? Are you seriously suggesting that people with ADHD are incapable of this?

You know what would happen if I tried to leave myself a note?

• Scrabble around for a piece of paper and end up resorting to the back of an important letter.
• Go to the drawer where the pens sometimes are. Look in drawer and notice a half-finished project I stuffed in there six months ago.
• Realise that the part I needed to finish it actually turned up last week and should be in a pile somewhere near the door.
• Go to look in pile but find nothing because OMG this place is an absolute mess. Realise I need to tidy up.
• Tidy entire room.
• Flop into bed exhausted, with a nagging feeling there's something I've forgotten.
• (Project is now stuffed in a different drawer to be discovered at a random future time.)
• Four days later, remember this "note" idea.
• Easily find pen, but important letter has unaccountably vanished.
• No matter, I'll find another piece of paper.
• Look on shelf where paper usually is. Find instead a stack of old childhood penfriend letters.
• Spend next five hours reading them, looking up penfriend online, reading about 90s kids' stationery sets, then toys, then electronics, then vintage electronics, and before you know it it's 3 in the morning, I've bought Christmas presents for the niblings, and I'm several miles down a SNES hacking scene rabbithole.
• Flop into bed exhausted, with a nagging feeling there's something I've forgotten.
• Two days later, remember that "note" idea. Find pen. Find paper. Write note.
• At some point, leave the room to go and do something else, clutching the note in my hand without realising, and it disappears somewhere into the ether never to be seen again.

And so on.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that greatly affects an individual’s ability to function. It can impact a child’s education, social life, and even physical health, and it will often remain a concern into adulthood. Common symptoms of ADHD in adults include trouble staying organized, lack of focus, time blindness, and problems dealing with stress

If it's a neurodevelopmental disorder then there ought to be tests proving it. But there aren't. Troubles with disorganization, lack of focus, etc. may be down to an individual's personality, not a mental health condition. All the diagnoses are just box ticking exercises, with no scientific basis.

Many people have trouble coping with stress. It doesn't mean they have something wrong with their brain.

I don't.

Yes. Completely and utterly incapable of writing a note and completing the action. I know what I want to do, I want to do it, but just can't. And yes, my career was in shreds. Stimulants means that I can actually keep a job, and even flourish.

@Winterhail are you for real???
Yes a lot of people with ADHD lead very chaotic lives. It's not just a case of writing yourself a note or clean up or stop being lazy.

Please please do some research on it as you are coming across really rude and patronising.

@Winterhail

ADHD brains smaller overall and in certain regions
Previous studies have found links between differences in brain volume and ADHD, but they were limited by small sample sizes, making it difficult to draw any firm conclusions.
Nevertheless, these did point to a number of brain differences in ADHD. For example, some suggested that the basal ganglia – an area of the brain that controls emotion, cognition, and voluntary movement – is involved. They found that two regions in the ganglia, the caudate and putamen, tend to be smaller in people with ADHD.
For the new study, Dr. Hoogman and colleagues measured differencess_
Trusted Sourcee_
in brain structure from MRI scanss_ of 1,713 participants diagnosed with ADHD, and in 1,529 other people (the controls) who did not have ADHD. The participants’ ages ranged from 4 to 63 years.
From the MRI scans, the team could assess overall brain volume as well as the size of seven regions of the brain that previous studies have linked to ADHD. These were the caudate nucleus, putamen, nucleus accumbens, pallidum, thalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus.
The results showed that the brains of participants with ADHD were smaller overall, and that volumes of five of the seven regions were also smaller: the caudate nucleus, putamen, nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and hippocampus.
The researchers also took into account whether the participants were taking, or had ever taken, medication to treat ADHD (such as Ritalin), but this appeared to have no effect on the findings.

“The results from our study confirm that people with ADHD have differences in their brain structure and therefore suggest that ADHD is a disorder of the brain. We hope that this will help to reduce stigma that ADHD is ‘just a label’ for difficult children or caused by poor parenting. This is definitely not the case, and we hope that this work will contribute to a better understanding of the disorder.”
Dr. Martine Hoogman

God, but your life sounds chaotic.
Doh!

😂😂

I didn't even get to the part about what happens when I do eventually manage to write the note and leave it somewhere I'll see it in the morning!

I eat a very healthy diet. Fish oils and carnitine help very slightly with my symptoms. I also need plenty of exercise and very good sleep. However, my ADHD is very, very genetic.

Yes, and my genes code for low production of certain neurotransmitters. That's natural population variation and diversity. I supplement my natural production with prescribed medication.

ADHD, untreated, is associated with unemployment, drug and alcohol addiction, prison time, and a much shortened lifespan. Are you telling me that that's not worth treating?

You know how sometimes parents happen to have a kid who's placid, tractable, agreeable, happily eats whatever's placed in front of them, trots off to bed when they're told to, slept through from six months, potty-trained as soon as the parents nicely asked them to, etc., and some of those parents look at other people's tantrumming hellions and congratulate themselves on their own excellent parenting, rather than accepting that there's a hell of a lot of luck involved in whether you get an easy one that does as it's told?

That, but with your own brain.

After 50 years of problematic behaviour and outbursts, trying to manage using therapies both private and via NHS, being unable to work and her poor husband bearing the brunt of it. My sister was finally diagnosed with ADHD. She recently started on medication which within days we can see is giving her her life back.

Hopefully some of these kids going for a diagnosis don't end up with so many wasted years as my sister has. In all honesty without her husband providing stability and support she'd have been dead years ago.

I don't even know where to start with the inaccuracies in that article. What a load of poorly written rubbish.

Here you go dearie, sure there's plenty of other articles you could find if you bothered to actually check your facts before coming on here with your ignorant and uninformed comments....www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(17)30049-4/fulltext

You can't get a diagnosis of ADHD because you have "pandemic brain". Symptoms have to have been present before age 12.

Very true. However, I can say that the pandemic "unmasked" things for me. I went through my life just coping at times and falling in a heap at others. I built this whole repertoire of coping techniques. Pandemic meant that I couldn't use those techniques, the monotony was terrible for my novelty - seeking brain, and it all came crashing down.