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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Not Just For Kids: ADD A Growing Problem For Adults

Michael Nuccitelli and Helen Driscoll are successful, confident adults – they own their own businesses and you wouldn’t know by looking at them that they are a part of a growing trend of adults who are being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5.4 million children have attention deficit hypersensitive disorder (ADHD), and while the vast majority of kids will grow out of it, about 4 percent of the U.S. population will continue to suffer with this condition.

However, ADHD is a fairly new disorder, which means adults who are in their 40s and beyond were left to suffer silently as children.

“The interesting thing is that (this condition) didn’t exist 20 years ago,” said Dr. Dale Archer, a psychiatrist who is based in New York and Louisiana. “So there is a lot of controversy surrounding this. And a recent study said that this was vastly overdiagnosed, and the younger the child, the greater the likelihood of diagnosis.”

Nuccitelli, a forensic psychologist who lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, said he never felt hyper as a child, but always had difficulty concentrating on the task at hand or paying attention; often people would ask him why he seemed to be “in another world.”

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3 comments:

lmclain said...

A FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST (?!) is complaining of attention deficit?? How did he accomplish his degree, which is a difficult field of study. He might have more credibility if he DIDN'T get a degree....lol. This report opens up a whole new group of people needing "prescriptions" to treat their "condition"....sometimes at work, I like to take a moment to daydream. I tune out the droning of some people and don't give my attention to everything that crosses my path. I need some drugs. And a disability check.

Anonymous said...

ok

Anonymous said...

it's a shame
everything is a condition now
bright disciplined people excel effortlessly and all of progress is held up molly coddling the weak and making concessions for flawed character and poor parenting
guess what....nature is not fair
no drug is going to give you a boost in the gene pool......and if we had any menial jobs anymore we might be able to rid people of these ridiculous democratic expectations of god born fairness and equality.....there is an organic classism