Adhd

"It's ADHD, What Now?"

You are at the office having a stressful and busy day at work, when once again the phone rings and it's your child's teacher. As soon as you pick up the phone and realize who is on the other line you are already well aware of what is about to be said. As you mock the voice on the other line, thoughts about how frequent these calls are becoming fill your mind. As a parent you do not want to believe that your child is a trouble maker and would like to believe that this is just another phase that they are going through, but the seriousness of your child's behavior is escalating. This is the third time this month that a teacher has called complaining of your child's difficulty concentrating and their inattention in the classroom (Monastra 11). The teacher describes your child's behavior as hyperactive and wonders if any unusual behavior patterns have been observed at home as well. The teacher thinks that detention and calling you are not helping and suggests that you take your child to the doctor to consult about the possibility of your child having ADHD. Now that you think about it, you have noticed lack of concentration during homework, excessive talking and activity lately. So you concede to taking your child in for an evaluation by a psychiatrist for ADHD. As it turns out, according to your doctor's diagnosis, your child has ADHD. Now as a parent it is your duty to figure out what this all means for you and your child.

This scenario is familiar to numerous parents across the country. ADHD is one of the most diagnosed disorders among adolescents, plaguing a reported two million children in the United States alone (Glick). With such a wide scale disorder stems controversy and conflicting views on how to treat the disorder. It is almost as if mental disorders are notoriously glamorized in society. "Nearly a quarter of the U.S. workforce (28 million workers) experience a mental disorder" not including plenty of additional suffers who have not been diagnosed. Not to long ago the notion of going to therapy was shunned upon and was only for "crazy" people. Now, therapy is a part of a lot of peoples lives and having a mental disorder is no longer the extreme minority but in majority for society. Just think about celebrities who constantly talk about going to therapy for depression and other mental issues. Anxiety, depression, and ADHD are among some of mental disorders that receive a lot of attention and seem to affect a lot of people. With new discoveries in how scientifically these disorders affect people has come medications to treat them.

Among the most controversial medications are the medications used to treat ADHD. The medications used to treat the disorder are stimulant prescription medications. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the treatment of ADHD with them and the overall effectiveness and safety of the medications for adolescents to use. There is also a new overwhelming concern of abuse of the medication by college and high school students to advance in their studies. Many parents, teachers, and adolescents are left feeling confused about what to believe and what information is the truth. There is so much ambiguity that surrounds the diagnosis of ADHD; some even question whether or not the disorder exists. Some doctors feel that the stimulant medication used to treat ADHD is safe and effective; while others feel that the medication is dangerous and poses a serious threat as an abused substance. Some parents and teachers question that ADHD is an actual disorder and believe that there are other factors that are responsible for adolescent's behavior. There is enough evidence to show that not only is ADHD a real disorder but stimulant prescription medication used to treat the disorder is effective and safe.

One of the first questions that will typically cross a parents mind when they hear that their child has ADHD is: what is it exactly? ADHD is an acronym for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Defined by the American Psychiatric Association, it "is characterized by persistent and developmentally inappropriate problems with attention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity" (Weyandt 1). ADHD is defined scientifically as an inherited disorder caused "by an underarousal of the regions of the brain the regulate mood, control behavior, and help one pay attention" (Monastra 35). Evidence shows that people who have been diagnosed with ADHD have lower interaction of dopamine in the brain and this underactivity is responsible for the lack of concentration and other symptoms that people with ADHD exhibit (Monastra 33). Put more simply, "ADHD is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain" that cause the symptoms of ADHD to occur (Weydant 26). This scientific proof is the evidence the government and doctors needed to be convinced that ADHD does indeed exist. The findings support the symptoms that patients with ADHD experience and provide good insight into what treatment is going to be effective. Some still feel that ADHD is caused by sugar and the foods we intake, but "scientific studies have failed to support this claim" (Weydant 23). A poor diet may exasperate the affects of ADHD in a child but it does not actually cause the disorder. "Evidence [shows] that children, who have deficiencies of iron, zinc, and magnesium, will show symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity" but these studies fail to link this evidence with ADHD. The previous then can only be interpreted as there being a real scientific reason for ADHD, a disorder that has even been established by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a legitimate mental disorder.

Now that ADHD had been deemed a relevant mental disorder, ways to diagnose patients becomes the next issue. ADHD is diagnosed based on the degree of severity of symptoms experienced in patients. Inattention and hyperactivity have to be so severe that it interferes with your child's ability to execute in everyday life albeit at home, school, or during sports practice (Monastra 13). As a result, "five criteria" are tested by the "DSM- IV test" to diagnose ADHD (Monastra 14). This test puts each patient's symptoms on a range of severity to diagnose the disorder. The patient must prove that the "five criteria:" inattention, hyperactivity, impairment from symptoms in different environments, and that the symptoms experienced are severe enough to greatly interfere with daily life to be diagnosed (Monastra 14-24). To be even more precise, doctors perform a multimethod assessment test to "increase the accuracy of an ADHD diagnosis" and to rule out "symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, or hyperactivityÐ'...caused by another mental or physical disorder" (Weyandt