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Adult ADD Symptom Criteria

Written by ADDer 8 Comments

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ADD Research ADHD StudiesAn interesting ADD research review from November 2010 ask whether the proper criteria are being used to diagnose adult ADD.  Attention deficit disorder, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as it is officially called, has three clinically defined types.  Each type of ADHD has its own symptoms and potential treatments.  However, the criteria necessary for a diagnosis of adult ADHD is laid out in a manual known as DSM-IV. One group of researchers reviewed clinical interviews to see how the ADD symptoms criteria should be re-examined for the upcoming publication of DSM-V.

Diagnosis of Adult ADD

One interesting result of the research was that almost half of the people who had ADHD as a child still meet the DSM-IV criteria to be diagnosed with adult ADHD.  Of those, almost all of them still report a current attention deficit disorder (94.9%) while just over a third still report a hyperactivity issue (34.6%).

In other words, the persistence of ADD into adulthood is correlated much more with attention deficit rather than with hyperactivity.

To put it another way, you are much more likely to outgrow being hyperactive than you are to outgrow an attention deficit.

The main issue raised by the researchers is that many consider ADD to have three factors. Two of the factors are recognized by the DSM-IV as requirements for a diagnosis of adult ADD, while the third is not.

According to the researchers, the three factors of adult ADD are:

  1. Inattention / Hyperactivity
  2. Impulsivity
  3. Impaired Executive Function

Executive function is not a recognized criteria for adult ADD, however, as the review shows, it is the least likely of the three to be outgrown.  In other words, it is the key component of an adult ADD diagnosis and it is not currently used as a criteria.

Whether anything will come of this research remains to be seen, however, it does provide some useful information for us adults with ADHD. Just because you are not hyperactive, doesn’t mean you don’t still have the core issue that comes with ADD. Furthermore, perhaps as you age and choose your ADD treatments based on solid scientific data and medical research, you may want to prioritize those that focus on executive function.

 

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Filed Under: ADHD Traits Tagged With: ADD News, add research, add symptoms, ADD/ADHD, adhd symptoms, adult add, dsm iv, Mental Health




Comments

  1. Dan says

    February 26, 2012 at 11:42 pm

    That really sounds like me. I have general anxiety disorder Dx and thought some of the inattention qualities were 2/2 anxiety but it’s pretty evident that I do have some if not a lot of ADD tendencies w/o influence from GAD. I have tried Barr, Corepharma, and Sandoz all without significant success (too much unwanted side effects). If you have any recs, I would appreciate it.

    Reply
    • ADDer says

      February 29, 2012 at 1:47 pm

      I know nothing about GAD, so I can’t help you there. You could try some of the ADD meds either instead of, or in conjunction with, your GAD meds. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t even play one on TV, but my theory is, if it isn’t helping, don’t do it. There is no reason to throw chemicals into your body if they do not improve your quality of life. Discuss this with your doc, but he might be willing to try the ADHD meds. People respond differently to Adderall, Vyvanse, etc… so you might have to do a little trial and error to find out which one works for you. The consensus around here seems to be that Vyvanse causes a lot of side effects for users. You might want to start with Adderall (generic) just from that angle.

      Reply
  2. one says

    December 8, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    Checked my bookmarks, got distracted for around 5 minutes trying to see if there was a way to get Firefox to tell me how many bookmarks I had, realised I have a folder marked “Interesting” which I then hovered over and discovered to have upwards of 50 pages, checked one of the pages on a whim only to find that the website it was on no longer exists, tried to remember what year I last remembered it existing and came up with around 2006 maybe, accidentally clicked the top bar of Firefox so the bookmarks menu closed, saw this page open and remembered I only checked by bookmark collection because I knew it was huge and I kind of wanted to make a comment (even though I’ve made like three already and I don’t want to seem like a loser comment-spamming some blog I’ll probably never return to) and finally decided what the hell and wrote this comment. Then debated for some time on whether or not to hit the ‘submit’ button.

    Reply
    • ADDer says

      December 13, 2011 at 2:33 pm

      Thanks for sharing. That’s exactly the kind of thing I routinely get lost in.

      Sorry about your comments not showing up. I have to manually approve them because this blog gets tons of spam. I guess anything that mentions prescription drugs is a prime spammer target. Please don’t get discouraged. I always end up sorting through to the worthwhile ones eventually 🙂

      Reply
  3. John says

    December 6, 2011 at 7:34 am

    Oh, dude, I laughed when reading this. I have the same problem with bookmarks and read-it-later. I just did a purge in my springpad notebooks. Deleted almost 50 links, and maybe I’ll also delete every kind of “general” information that I can find on a Google search.

    Reply

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