U.S. News: Digital Media Is ‘Like Cocaine’ for Babies & Developing Brains
Credit: U.S. News By: Dr. Leah Light November 7, 2018 Click here to read
Adult ADHD part 1
It’s 2014. A new year. And time to get back to work for all of us. Especially me blogging more frequently.
When I was a child and adolescent, those of you who knew me might have described my behavior as being impulsive. One grade on our report card was citizenship and no matter how good your academic grades, you could be thrown off the honor roll by a poor citizenship grade. Every 6 weeks, I sat down with my father to discuss why I talked all the time in class. I promised to do better; I never did; I just couldn’t shut up. In college, I made lists of projects and put them on a huge piece of cardboard and stuck it on the wall so I could mark out what was finished and what still needed to be completed.
I always thought I was impulsive. Whether it was getting out of bed at 2AM to go to breakfast or take a quick drive up to Indianapolis to get White Castles, I was the first one to agree to participate.
I’m not impulsive anymore. I lost that somewhere in my late 20ies. I do have other problems like having difficulty focusing for extended periods of time whether at a professional event or committee meeting or conversation; being restless; being unable to organize myself without charting what I need to do and being able to see what I have to do. I don’t know why.
Now in an article in this month’s Scientific American Mind, there is an article about Adult ADHD. According to this article, many children having some degree of ADHD outgrow it but many do not. Adult ADHD is thought to afflict 4.4% of the adult populations. It was thought that ADHD was only something affecting little boys, but now they know the little girls can be affected as well. We all know the symptoms. But in adults, people with ADHD face challenges stemming from a combination of three core symptoms: trouble paying attention, restlessness and impulsivity. By adult-hood, hyperactive and impulsive traits tend to wane whereas difficulties with controlling attention more often persist.
The World Health Organization has developed a test called the Adult Self-Report Scale Screener that incorporates the ore common difficulties in adults with ADHD. Answer its questions, below, and we will talk more about remedies in the next blog.
Check the box that best describes how you have felt and conducted yourself over the past six months.
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1. How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project once the challenging parts have been done? |
Never |
Rarely |
Sometimes
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Often
******* |
Very often
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2.How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization? |
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3.How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations? |
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4. When you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started? |
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********* |
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5. How often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time? |
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6. How often do you feel overly active and compelled to do things, as if you were driven by a motor?
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Add the number of checkmarks that appear in the areas with *******. Four or more checkmarks indicate that your symptoms may e consistent with adult ADHD. It may be beneficial to talk with our health care provider about an evaluation.