A Brief Background, Plus Assumptions Are Revisited
A revision to my hypothesis is probably in order. I concede that Adult ADD was not made up by the marketing team for a large pharmaceutical company.
Though adult ADD seems to have come out of nowhere, it has been recognized by the psychiatric community for a few decades. Childhood AD/HD is a condition that has been treated for nearly a century, but until recently it was believed children would outgrow the problem by puberty.
The current thinking is that the hyperactivity-related symptoms diminish, but the underlying organizational and attention related problems remain.
It is estimated that 67% of children with AD/HD will continue to have symptoms well into their adult lives.
For more info, see Fact Sheet #7 from www.chadd.org.
In the 90’s, a few books addressing the problem were published, including ‘You mean I’m not lazy, stupid, or crazy?’ by Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo (1996) and Driven To Distraction : Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey (1995).
It is still interesting to note that a lot of the recent press regarding Adult ADD seems to focus on getting adults who have never been diagnosed as having AD/HD or ADD to consider the possibility that they may have it. The Strattera website (www.strattera.com) and adult-add.com both have handy Adult ADD screening tools, which direct you to print out the results and take them to your doctor if your answers are consistent with the DSM-IV symptoms for ADD. Actually they don’t tell you to go tell your doctor to give you a prescription, a team of lawyers came up with this:
"It may be beneficial for you to talk with your healthcare professional about an evaluation.”
The idea that much of the press given to Adult ADD is marketing-driven is not novel by any means. A story on CNN’s site from July 2003 of asks: Adult ADD: Common disorder or marketing ploy? This article appears on numerous ADD/ADHD websites (sometimes without crediting the authors, Elizabeth Cohen and Debra Goldschmidt. Shame, shame!)
Coincidentally, 2003 is also the year Eli Lilly launched Strattera, a non-stimulant drug for treating ADHD/ADD, and the only drug with FDA approval to treat adults with the problem. The fact that it is a non-stimulant drug means there is less potential for abuse, and this also removes many of the pesky controls in place for stimulants, including only being able to obtain a month’s worth of the drug at any given time, and having to make an in-person visit to the doctor to get a new prescription everytime you need it (the prescription can not be phoned in).Tune in for the next installment of YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE.
Note to self and others: Never again am I going to keep notes and write this stuff in Microsoft Word before cutting and pasting it here. It tries to be clever and convert what you had to HTML, but it ends up being an ugly mess that's more trouble to clean up than writing it all from scratch. Next time I'll use Emacs if I need a scratch pad. Sheesh!
Though adult ADD seems to have come out of nowhere, it has been recognized by the psychiatric community for a few decades. Childhood AD/HD is a condition that has been treated for nearly a century, but until recently it was believed children would outgrow the problem by puberty.
The current thinking is that the hyperactivity-related symptoms diminish, but the underlying organizational and attention related problems remain.
It is estimated that 67% of children with AD/HD will continue to have symptoms well into their adult lives.
For more info, see Fact Sheet #7 from www.chadd.org.
In the 90’s, a few books addressing the problem were published, including ‘You mean I’m not lazy, stupid, or crazy?’ by Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo (1996) and Driven To Distraction : Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey (1995).
It is still interesting to note that a lot of the recent press regarding Adult ADD seems to focus on getting adults who have never been diagnosed as having AD/HD or ADD to consider the possibility that they may have it. The Strattera website (www.strattera.com) and adult-add.com both have handy Adult ADD screening tools, which direct you to print out the results and take them to your doctor if your answers are consistent with the DSM-IV symptoms for ADD. Actually they don’t tell you to go tell your doctor to give you a prescription, a team of lawyers came up with this:
"It may be beneficial for you to talk with your healthcare professional about an evaluation.”
The idea that much of the press given to Adult ADD is marketing-driven is not novel by any means. A story on CNN’s site from July 2003 of asks: Adult ADD: Common disorder or marketing ploy? This article appears on numerous ADD/ADHD websites (sometimes without crediting the authors, Elizabeth Cohen and Debra Goldschmidt. Shame, shame!)
Coincidentally, 2003 is also the year Eli Lilly launched Strattera, a non-stimulant drug for treating ADHD/ADD, and the only drug with FDA approval to treat adults with the problem. The fact that it is a non-stimulant drug means there is less potential for abuse, and this also removes many of the pesky controls in place for stimulants, including only being able to obtain a month’s worth of the drug at any given time, and having to make an in-person visit to the doctor to get a new prescription everytime you need it (the prescription can not be phoned in).Tune in for the next installment of YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE.
Note to self and others: Never again am I going to keep notes and write this stuff in Microsoft Word before cutting and pasting it here. It tries to be clever and convert what you had to HTML, but it ends up being an ugly mess that's more trouble to clean up than writing it all from scratch. Next time I'll use Emacs if I need a scratch pad. Sheesh!
posted by SDC at 6:07 PM
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