Risk factors for ADHD include: Family history, being male, low birthweight, complications during delivery, and smoking during pregnancy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
| How do we Diagnose? | ||||||||||||||||||
| According to the DSM, there are three subtypes. You can either be mostly inattentive, mostly hyperactive-impulsive, or combined. The majority of people fall into the combined category. |
||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | ||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| As the name suggests, there are two categories of symptoms: inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity. To be diagnosed you need six symptoms from either category. For the combined diagnosis, you would 6 symptoms from each category. Also for a diagnosis of ADHD, you need to show these symptoms for 6 months and it must be before age 7. Symptoms of ADHD decrease with age. | ||||||||||||||||||
|
TREATMENT | |||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| However, most people do not use the DSM to diagnose children. Most people who diagnose ADHD are pediatricians. They rely mostly on reports from teachers, parents, and their own intuition to make diagnosis. In my opinion method is highly subjective and more objective measures like the DSM must be used. The fear arises when pediatricians make ADHD a "pet" diagnosis. Also, relying on observational data from unqualified observers also confounds this problem. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Today there are over 1.5 million children taking Ritalin (Rowland, 168). In the US, 15% of boys are being treated with this problem when the DSM states that ADHD should be prevalent among 3-5% of children (Rowland, 165, 168). Clearly there is a problem with diagnosis here and largely stems from the lack of any standardized diagnostic tools. Risk factors for ADHD include: Family history, being male, low birthweight, complications during delivery, and smoking during pregnancy. |
||||||||||||||||||