Adult ADHD

Adult ADHD is a newly recognized condition and it is because of this that there are often problems with it’s diagnosis.  Psychiatrists are increasingly facing the challenge of diagnosing attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in many patients. There has been an introduction of new clinical rating scales for adult ADHD, but this has not been without it’s problems.  A number of controversies have continued to complicate the diagnosis of this disorder.  The DSM-IV criteria for ADHD was always available as a way to test people for ADHD, but this was developed for children and adolescents and cannot always be applied to adults.

The American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have discussed the development of several clinical rating scales for adult ADHD, to try and bypass some of the problems with it’s diagnosis amongst an adult population.  The ways in which these new scales can be used to accurately evaluate symptoms has also been discussed.  However it still remains the case that there is no simple way to diagnose whether you or your child has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

If you think you may have adult ADHD, you should see your GP, who may refer you to a specialist. Under the current diagnostic guidelines, a diagnosis of adult ADHD cannot be confirmed unless your symptoms have been present from childhood, and here lies the problems that face modern medical staff, especially those that are not experts in the field.  If you were not diagnosed with childhood ADHD at the time, your specialist may wish to talk to your parents, teachers or anyone else who knew you well when you were a child. However if your problems are recent, and did not occur regularly in the past, it may be difficult to become diagnosed as having adult ADHD.