ADHD Test: Vanderbilt ADHD Rating Scale

By Dr. Yannick Pauli

ADHD is a tricky disorder to diagnose. While it's easy to assume that a hyperactive little boy or an inattentive student might be suffering from ADHD, these symptoms can also point to a number of unrelated disorders - autism, sensory integration problems, learning disorders, and even hearing problems. When these disorders occur with ADHD, they are called "co-morbid" disorders and should be addressed by a child's treatment plan.

One way specialists screen co-morbid learning disorders is through a reliable tool called the Vanderbilt ADHD Rating Scale (VARS). This scale was specifically designed to identify if a child diagnosed with ADHD might also be suffering from learning disorders, particularly in spelling or reading.

VARS is not actually used on the child per se; rather, the scale is answered by parents and teachers. After all, they are the ones who see how the child behaves on a regular basis. Items on the scale include behavioral descriptions, such as "Leaves seat when he is supposed to stay in seat" or "Is afraid to try new things for fear of making mistakes." The test-taker has to rate the following behaviors on a scale of 0 to 3 where 0 stands for "never" and 3 stands for "very often."

It's important to note that this rating scale is not designed to identify or diagnose the specific co-morbid disorder a child might have. Rather, it will help you find out if your child has any learning difficulties that need to be addressed by the right specialist. Then your child can undergo certain treatments to overcome these problems along with the symptoms of ADHD.

Additionally, VARS cannot identify math learning disorders. Despite these limitations, however, researchers have found the VARS to be a reliable screening tool for children with ADHD. A recent study on the reliability of the VARS involved the participation of 128 unmedicated children with ADHD between the ages 7 to 11 years. After the parents and teachers took the test, it was discovered that 38% of the children met the criteria for spelling and reading learning disorders.

So when you have your child evaluated for ADHD, make sure that the doctor uses of the VARS or similar assessment tools designed to rule out co-morbid disorders. Aside from treating the core symptoms of ADHD, it's important that you uncover all the problems your child may be experiencing so that he or she can recover completely.

Dr. Yannick Pauli is an expert on natural approaches to ADHD and the author of the popular self-help home-program The Unritalin Solution. He is Director of the Centre Neurofit in Lausanne, Switzerland and has a passion taking care of children with ADHD. Click on the link for more great information about what is adhd.

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Adult ADHD - Just for Laughs

Got this email from my cousin....who emails me everything!

This time, I think she got it right. Recognize anybody here?

AAADD.- KNOW THE SYMPTOMS!

Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder.

Age-Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table, Put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, And notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back On the table and take out the garbage first...

But then I think...Since I'm going to be near the mailbox When I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table, And see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Pepsi I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, But first I need to push the Pepsi aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The Pepsi is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need water.

I put the Pepsi on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

The car isn't washed,
The bills aren't paid,
There is a warm can of Pepsi sitting on the counter,
The flowers don't have enough water,
There is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can't find the remote,
I can't find my glasses,
And I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

Do me a favor. Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember who I've sent it to.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

P.S. I don't remember who sent it to me, so if it was you, I'm sorry
....................

Hope you got a laugh out of thie. Now, to get back to what I was doing before I decided to check my email.

Adult ADHD: Natural Treatments Vs Prescription Drugs

By Mark Rosenberg, M.D.

Several of my patients have attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). It can be a frustrating condition to live with and, usually, prescription medications seem like the only recourse. However, as I share with my ADHD patients, there are some things you should know about the pros and cons of ADHD medications and alternative methods of treating the condition and I'd like to share those with you here today on this informative natural health news publication.

ADHD - WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

If you've been diagnosed with adult ADHD, or are wondering if you might have it, take heart, you're not alone. Approximately 9 million American adults have the disorder and you'd share it with some well-known people including actress Marilyn Monroe, painter Vincent VanGogh, writers Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf as well as TV game show celebrity Howie Mandel, and U.S. Olympic hockey winner Cammie Granato.

The most common symptoms of adult ADHD are the following:

• Inability to concentrate and focus attention for any length of time. Can be highly disorganized and have difficulty adhering to any structure. Can cause work, educational, and personal relationship strains.
• Characterized by high "manic" energy levels at times, hardly sleeping, over-productivity, followed by extreme lows of energy and depression. Attracted to high activity situations, environments, stress, chaotic lifestyles. Low tolerance for frustration cannot control temper, frequent verbal and physical fights with people, destructive tantrums.
• Symptoms in women may be much less obvious than in males and may be mistaken for monthly hormonal shift symptoms.

Medication Options - Pros and Cons

Once ADHD is diagnosed, it is generally most easily controlled with once-a-day stimulant-type prescription medication like Ritalin, Adderall, Dexedrine, Concerta and non-stimulant type Strattera, even though the FDA has not approved use of Ritalin in ADHD adults. In fact, the use of ADHD drugs rose 90%, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, between the years 2002 and 2005. ADHD gained a lot of attention and many adults were diagnosed with it - likely because the condition was overlooked, or misdiagnosed, as a child. Many were finally able to gain control over their symptoms and success in their lives.

Pros

Most ADHD medications are successful in about 70% of patient symptoms with these results:

• Calmer, happier mood, ability to concentrate, "stay on task", organize their life.
• Improved social relationships in school, work, interpersonal, more compliant with "going with the flow" instead of oppositional or combative behaviors.
• Improved impulsive and risky behavior - money spending, drugs and alcohol addictions, unsafe driving, irresponsible sexual behavior.

Cons

As ADHD drugs contain stimulants, many side effects can occur in adults taking the drugs:

• Can aggravate high blood pressure or heart rates especially in African-American males.
• Can interact with antidepressants; headache, stomachache, insomnia, loss of appetite.

Ritalin and Concerta are generally the preferred ADHD medications because they have fewer side effects and are successful at treating behavioral symptoms of ADHD.

Alternative Treatments - Pros and Cons

Because ADHD medications are not 100% effective in controlling all patients' symptoms, ADHD sufferers have turned more and more to alternative methods to help deal with their symptoms. Here are some of the more common ones and their effectiveness/drawbacks:

• Exercise: Always a good idea for ADHD patients. Helps relieve stress and burn off excess energy. Works best in tandem with medications, though.
• Biofeedback: Uses repeated exercises to help the ADHD patient gain focus and control and improve listening and following instructions - what ADHD patients lack.
• Homeopathy: Medications like Stramonium, cina, and hyoscyamus niger, central nervous system calmants, are used in ADHD patients with success in some patients.
• Herbal medications: St. John's Wort, Valerian, gingko biloba and lemon balm may help some mild symptoms of ADHD but likely cannot control stronger symptoms.
• Food allergies/sensitivities: Food allergens or sensitivities may aggravate ADHD symptoms, particularly sugar and food dyes. Indeed, many people with ADHD do show improvement on sugar-restricted diets. If there is an allergy to specific foods, like coloring dyes, or gluten, ADHD symptoms can also be aggravated.

As I tell my patients, ADHD can be a frustrating condition to live with. However, a combination of treatments including medications, exercise, even biofeedback can help you gain control over your symptoms and lead a happier, healthier life!

Stay well,

Dr. Mark

I am one of the few doctors in this country who is board certified in anti-aging and am currently the Director of South Florida's Institute For Healthy Aging. With more than two decades of experience in treating thousands of patients, you could say I've seen it all. I treat a wide range of medical conditions- from cancer to obesity- and believe that natural, practical alternatives carry the day.

I believe that education is fundamental to prevention and wellness. I've partnered with other medical experts and developed an online health education site,

http://www.HealthyAnswers.com, which offers a wealth of natural health information, written by top physicians and medical experts.

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Getting a Life Coach to Find Your Way Out of Adult ADHD

By Eshean Butler

ADHD can be troublesome enough when you are a child if you can't seem to get all your homework done in time with your mother watching over you.

What must it feel like to be all grown up with a job, a marriage, a child of your own to take care of, and to still not be able to get a handle on anything?

Adult ADHD, surprisingly, is a problem that still hasn't received the kind of attention it deserves. Two out of three children with ADHD grow up to have that disease as adults. Adults who have ADHD today often don't realize that they do. About the first time that they ever realize that they might have a mental illness is when their own child gets diagnosed, and they begin to put two and two together.

Adult ADHD is often something that people have been fighting their entire adult lives and their childhoods as well. These are the people who as children had a great deal of trouble setting themselves up for a task at school and completing it - getting distracted, disorganized and losing concentration along the way.

Some adults with ADHD, even if they've never actually found out that they have the disease, have managed to figure out some kind of a system for themselves to get by on. They might be very bright and they might manage to somehow get by through life. But they just aren't achieving their potential. If they didn't have ADHD, they would be so much better off.

One way that people with adult ADHD deal with their problem is that they hire a life coach at about $100 an hour to help them figure out what they are doing wrong and how to correct things. While it does sound kind of expensive, most people don't need to see their life coach more than four or five times. But the biggest problem that an adult with ADHD has is that he can't usually figure out a system that will work for him keep to it. Most of his time is spent worrying excessively about how his day is slipping through his hands with nothing to show for it.

Is a life coach an alternative to taking medication?

Not really so.

A life coach is totally different and hiring one is something you do to just help yourself. The first thing a life coach will do for you is to help you not start any new projects. The more a person with organizational problems has to do, the more difficult it becomes for him to organize things. Whatever new ideas one gets for projects to start, one certainly needs to write them down for a future date. But one can't get started on them and overburden oneself.

With help from the life coach, the person with ADHD chooses just a couple of goals to achieve, and then gets on the job. With enough discipline and with the consultant looking in to check one's progress, one learns the skills one needs to become a proper functioning adult. The life coach isn't a therapist. He doesn't give you advice on what is going on in your head and how you can control your thoughts. He just tells you what exactly you are doing wrong on a practical level, and tells you that you need to stop doing that.

How you stop doing it is entirely up to you.

It works very well with people who have accepted that they have a problem and just wish to do whatever it takes. With people who might be in a certain amount of denial, or who just want to throw money at the problem and have the life coach set everything right for them, such a system may not really work.

Basically, if you have adult ADHD, you do need the coaching, of course. But you also need medication and therapy. Pretty soon, you should be able to set up a few healthy habits and become an adult who is in control of his life.

About Adult ADHD - Overview and Resource

By Donovan Baldwin"

When asked to imagine a person with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), many people come up with the image of a hyperactive child in a store, an apparently undisciplined and disruptive kid in the classroom, or a kid who takes longer than necessary to finish a homework assignment...if it gets finished at all.

What many do not realize, however, is that while it is true that ADHD afflicts millions of children, it is also a disorder that affects upwards of 8 million adults.

How Can Adult ADHD Be Recognized?

Many people tend to think of ADHD as a childhood disorder, but do not realize that as many as 80 percent of children with ADHD will continue to exhibit symptoms into adolescence. Some will eventually reach a more normal state, but up to 65 percent of children will continue to exhibit symptoms of ADHD into adulthood.

NAMES CAN HURT

Adults with untreated ADHD may be perceived as "scatterbrained", "disorganized" or "lazy", word which I often heard as a child and continued to use to define myself as I became an adult. What many people are unaware of is that ADHD is not just "sloppy thinking" but is actually an impairing neurological disorder, rather than just an organizational or behavioral problem.

In a book titled "Scattered Minds: Hope and Help for Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" the author, Dr. Lenard Adler, who is director of the Adult ADHD Program at New York University, presents recent information for the growing number of adults who suspect that they, or a loved one, have ADHD. The easy-to-read book reviews previously unrecognized signals of ADHD, misconceptions about this poorly understood disorder and information about how to get an accurate diagnosis....and treatment options.

How Can Adult ADHD Diagnosed?

Unfortunately, there is no single objective test to determine if someone has ADHD. In his book, however, Dr. Adler has included a simple self-screening list which allows an individual to get an idea of their status. This screener has been adopted by WHO, the World Health Organization, and helps the reader assess whether they, or someone they know, have symptoms of ADHD.

Dr. Adler urges his readers to fill out the screening device and bring it to their physician for a more formal evaluation.

How Can Adult ADHD Be Treated?

Although there is no real "cure" for ADHD, there are accepted treatments that specifically help patients control its symptoms. In "Scattered Minds", Dr. Adler explains that the most common treatments include educational approaches, psychological or behavioral modification, and prescription medications, such as Adderall. Some people experience some help with high doses of Vitamin B-12.

Adults with unrecognized and untreated ADHD often experience a higher risk of lower educational and occupational achievement, difficulties in their relationships with family and friends, and a greater risk for driving accidents, work-related accidents, and traffic tickets. Adults who have not been treated for ADHD are 50 percent more likely to be unemployed as well as twice as likely to smoke cigarettes, and often use alcohol to excess.

Many tend to be "speed demons", thrill seekers, and "adrenaline junkies".

"Scattered Minds: Hope and Help for Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
" illuminates previously unrecognized signals or symptoms for adults who suspect they may have ADHD. It emphasizes that ADHD is not some imaginary difficulty experienced by wierd people, but is very real and is an accepted medical condition.

Adults who have ADHD often have greater difficulty dealing with everyday problems than their peers and generally face challenges in their personal lives and careers that their peers do not encounter. If you suspect you or somebody you know may have adult ADHD, pick up a copy of "Scattered Minds
" and take the simple screening test you will find there.

The Difference Between Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Adult ADHD

By Scott Shapiro

It can be very challenging for even the most experienced clinician to distinguish the differences between Bipolar Disorder, Type II, Borderline Personality Disorder and Adult ADHD. Symptoms often overlap and these disorders frequently co-occur; however, there can be clues from the history and presentation that often help determine the diagnosis and the appropriate types of treatments. Below, is a case of a patient with a challenging diagnosis followed by tips on differentiating Bipolar Disorder, Type II, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Adult ADHD.

Case:

Anna* is a 46 year-old, married nurse with three children. She presented with persistent low-grade depression, anxiety, and irritability. She was on probation at work for poor performance. She also had a long-standing history of difficulty with friendships.

She complained of life-long depression with intermittent episodes of more severe symptoms. During the more extreme episodes, she overslept, felt more irritable and anxious. She reported chronic racing thoughts and difficulty concentrating.

She had a chaotic childhood. Her father was a successful, workaholic attorney who was also an alcoholic. There were frequent, explosive fights between her parents. Anna was the oldest of 3 children and at the age of 10, her parents divorced. She became ensnarled in their long, drawn-out divorce process. In pre-school and elementary school, she had been quite precocious, according to school reports. She listened well, followed instructions, and had many close friends.

However, as the fighting intensified at home around third and fourth grades her grades dropped and she began to exhibit behavioral problems at school.

The above case represents a challenging diagnosis. Below are tips to help determine the diagnosis and whether there is the possibility of more than one diagnosis.

Mood Swings

Mood swings in Bipolar Disorder, Type II last for one to four days and include the person feeling "hyper", "on top of the world", irritable, invincible, elated, or even depressed despite being in a hypomanic episode.

People with Borderline Personality Disorder also have mood swings but they have feelings of sadness, anger, rage, or depression that is more chronically present and triggered by criticism, disappointment or stress. Also, people with Borderline Personality Disorder rarely feel elation.

People with Adult ADHD also describe mood swings and difficulty with managing moods; however, the duration is usually brief and due to low frustration tolerance. Also, in Adult ADHD there are feelings of shame, irritability, frustration, and sadness secondary to difficulty with school, work and relationships.

Impulsivity

Similarly, the symptoms of impulsivity are present in all the disorders but with different histories. Impulsivity may manifest as sexual promiscuity, excessive shopping binges, poor decision-making, automobile accidents or speeding tickets, and careless mistakes. With Bipolar Disorder, Type II, the impulsivity is present only during the periods of hypomania compared to Borderline Personality Disorder and Adult ADHD, when the impulsivity occurs chronically or due to an emotional trigger.

Concentration

All three disorders present with difficulty concentrating or focusing. This creates challenges with completing tasks, jumping from task to task, and starting projects without completing them. These symptoms occur in Bipolar Disorder, Type II only during the hypomanic phase but can be chronic with the other two disorders.

History

In Borderline Personality Disorder, there is more frequently a history of feeling empty and lonely, chaotic relationships, self-injury, and an extreme fear of abandonment. There is often a history of significant physical or sexual abuse during childhood or severe emotional neglect.

In Bipolar Disorder, Type II, there is frequently a family history of depression or Bipolar Disorder, and the symptoms of depression start at an earlier age. Also, depression is the more frequent complaint than hypomania.

In Adult ADHD, the person has persistent challenges with sustained attention, focus, executive functioning, distractibility, time management, procrastination, and significant difficulty with organization.

These symptoms may appear in the other two disorders; however, in Adult ADHD, the symptoms must have existed since childhood. In addition, ADHD has the highest genetic component of all three disorders and is estimated to have a concordance rate ranging from 60-80%. Thus, eliciting a history of other family members with ADHD increases the likelihood that the person may be dealing with Adult ADHD.

All three disorders can manifest "racing thoughts". In Adult ADHD, these thoughts are intermittently present and are exacerbated when there is greater stress or challenge in the environment.

With Bipolar Disorder, Type II, the symptom of racing thoughts occurs only during the hypomanic phase. The racing thoughts are often described as "crowded thoughts" and thinking of new and creative projects.

In Borderline Personality Disorder, the racing thoughts are usually precipitated by an emotionally laden experience such as a fight with or criticism from a friend or colleague.

Case Continued:

Upon further discussion with Anna, she denied having hypomanic episodes. However, she described feeling empty, lonely and having low self-esteem. Under severe stress, she would become acutely agitated, suicidal, have feelings of worthlessness, and be absent from work.

Over her life, she has gone to the psychiatric emergency room 6 times for suicidal thoughts, but has never made an attempt. She has also had a partial hospitalization. In addition, she has a long history of self-injuring behaviors including anorexia, cutting, and unprotected sex with casual contacts.

Anna has Borderline Personality Disorder as well as dysthymia. My recommendation was to start schema therapy twice a week as well as start on an MAOI and to start treatment in an intensive Dialectical Behavioral Treatment Program (CBT). Even though a MAOI is not FDA approved for Borderline Personality Disorder or dysthymia, there research shows its efficacy.

Two years later, Anna's mood has stabilized and she feels much less anxious. In addition, she has been able to enjoy more pleasure in her personal life and career. She has currently been in a relationship for 14 months, and although the direction of the relationship is unclear, she feels more comfortable tolerating the unknown.

This case presents the diagnostic challenges distinguishing Bipolar Disorder, Type II, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Adult ADHD. Using the above distinguishing features and taking a thorough assessment improves the accuracy of the diagnosis and helps in the determination of an effective treatment plan.

References:

Hirschfeld RM,Cass AR, Hot DC, Carlson CA. Screening for bipolar disorder in patients treated for depression in a family medicine clinic. J Am Board Family Practice. 2005:18: 233-239

McIntyre, Roger. Differential Diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. Supplement to Current Psychiatry. Bipolar Disorder. 2011: 3-22.

* To Maintain confidentiality

Scott Shapiro, MD is an Assistant Professor at New York Medical College and specializes in Adult ADHD. He has a private private in New York City. For more information contact him at 212-631-8010 or visit his website at http://www.scottshapiromd.com.

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Tips and Tricks for Adult ADHD Conference Attendees

By Laurie Dupar

I wanted to share some experiences about conferences! I love conferences and look forward to the opportunities to travel around the country to enjoy some time with other ADHD coaches and entrepreneurs, increase awareness of ADHD challenges, and finally meet some of my long distance clients face-to-face. It's sort of like the social season of 19th century London, when the movers and shakers gather together in the city for debutante balls, elaborate dinners and spectacular galas. They can be both exhilarating and exhausting.

My next conference will be the three day 6th Annual International ADHD Coaches Organization (ACO) in Atlanta, Georgia. Then I am off to Orlando, Florida for Suzanne Evans's four-day extravaganza "Be the Change Event". At both events I will be presenting on different topics, hosting a booth and trying to connect with as many amazing people as possible.

And as much as I love conferences, they can be incredibly challenging for ADHD adults (and even for those who don't struggle with focus, planning or organization). Over the years, I've become a veteran of these trips and have developed some strategies to offset ADHD symptoms so I enjoy and get the most out of these days. Here are some valuable tips and tricks that I want to share with you:

1. Do your homework. Many conferences post their speaker schedule online or provide some tips on how to travel to and from the airport. Doing research before you arrive makes you more prepared and less likely to miss important things such as when you are speaking or if meals are included.

2. Book your hotel room as soon as you know you are going to attend so you can secure a place at the hotel where the conference is being held. The "conference rate" hotel rooms fill fast. You will save time and money by not having to travel back and forth, (or get distracted by the scenery and miss your speaking time), and you will be able to sneak back to your room to rest if you get a break between sessions. Having quiet time to refuel will go a long way to helping you succeed with ADHD.

3. Bring a highlighter and a small notebook. When you receive the schedule of events, highlight the sessions you want to attend so you can plan your day and be reminded easily. The notebook is your 'ADHD brain cheat sheet'. After you meet someone you want to reconnect with after the conference, jot down the information in your notebook. Or keep track of tidbits of inspiration and knowledge you acquire. Both are ways to offset the information overwhelm and distraction that often accompany conferences.

4. Wear comfortable shoes. No matter your role at the conference, you will be on your feet more than you think. It's hard to smile and be your best self when your feet hurt.

5. Wear layers. The temperature in the rooms throughout a conference varies greatly.

6. Bring a trusted sidekick. If you have a booth, having an assistant there can alleviate the stress of keeping track of sales receipts or other details and allow you more time to network with colleagues and clients.

7. Take your ADHD medication. If your conference is out of town for multiple days, see if your psychiatrist will write you a short prescription you can fill if there is an emergency.

8. Realize that you can't clone yourself. If there are multiple sessions running at the same time you will need to partner with a colleague, divvy up the schedule and share notes on what you learned. Or take advantage of the options to purchase recordings so that you can review them on the plane ride home, but don't buy them if you won't review them!

9. Decide what you want to get out of the conference. Your goal may be to acquire new skills, network with colleagues, build your contact list or interact with clients. If you set your intention before you arrive, you will be in the right mindset and prepared to learn, connect or promote yourself. But be flexible, new opportunities often come from these events and you can move outside your comfort zone to discover great new ideas at conferences.

10. Bring your business cards! In fact put them in your travel bags right now!

11. Be open to learning. You may be an expert in your field, but that doesn't mean you can't pick up something new. And you may be surprised where you learn it. Nuggets of life changing brilliance can happen anywhere - even during a brief conversation on the elevator.

12. Especially at niche specific conferences such as those in the ADHD field, everyone knows everyone. The traditional six degrees of separation is reduced to about two or three. It is a great chance to network and meet those you emulate... but also a damaging place to gossip.

13. Sleep. As much as you can before you go and during the event. It may be tempting to stay up all night at the welcome reception - the energy and thrills of being there can be hard to walk away from. But remember, that's just day one. Conferences are marathons, and you need to recharge and take extra care of yourself so you can get to the end in good spirits.

14. Bring nutritious, easy to pack snacks. Conferences can be exhausting and having healthy snacks on hand such as dried fruit and nuts go a long way to keeping you energized, and your ADHD brain focused. Another trick is to travel with a few of packets of oatmeal and a disposable spoon. Breakfast is typically the hardest meal to catch during conferences. Adding hot water, readily available in most hotel rooms, along with some of those nuts and dried fruit is a great way to start your day.

15. Finally, plan for a day of decompression when you return home. A sudden reentry back into your world could create exhaustion that defeats all the positive energy you experienced at the conference. And it helps to process all of that new information with a clearer perspective.

If you are attending the ACO Conference, "Be the Change Event", stop by and introduce yourself! I'd love to say hello!

And if you have additional tips on conferences, especially ideas on how to cope with ADHD symptoms, share them below...

Laurie Dupar, Senior Certified ADHD Coach and trained Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, specializes in working with clients who have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and entrepreneurs who want to finally understand how their brain works, minimize their challenges and get things done! Through individual/group coaching, live speaking, and her writing, she helps clients and their loved ones use effective strategies to utilize their innate brain traits so they experience success. She is the co-author and editor of 365 Ways to Succeed with ADHD and 365+1 Ways to Succeed with ADHD and author of Unlock the Secrets to Your Entrepreneurial Brain Style. For more information, please visit http://www.coachingforadhd.com.

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Adult ADHD - One Man's Story

Adult ADHD

By Dr. Robert Sprackland

"Robert, stop it!"

Those words haunted me most of my life, whenever people became overwhelmed by my behavior. I just didn't understand what their problem was. Neither did any of the voices in my head.

The voices were constant and all mine, not God or spirits, and they didn't tell me to do anything antisocial. Rather, each (I counted eight) was a stream of regular thoughts, running concurrently, like an eight-track tape playing all tracks simultaneously. I often wandered into a conversational mode described by friends as a "Robin Williams monologue," telling jokes, making puns, jumping from topic to topic, and even changing voices and character.

But my head had always been like that. To me, everyone else moved and thought slowly, took forever to get to the point. I was driving my friends, coworkers and family nuts, and I couldn't to do anything about it. I was also a compulsive eater, injuring my health. Even my decades of meditation practice could not control the internal restlessness.

Then an odd conjunction of events led to help. My sister-in-law, Tina, an Army physician, suffered an injury and needed help driving home from Illinois to New York. I was available, so I spent three weeks with the family, during which time Tina got to observe me at close hand. She soon bluntly told me, "I really, really, really think you have ADHD." When Tina, a lieutenant colonel and formidable diagnostician, uses three "reallys" in a sentence, you had better take her seriously.

But ADHD? Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? Me? I had thought ADHD, ADD, and all those other new acronyms were children's ailments. I couldn't have ADHD; I was from the generation that found super-fast flashing of movie trailers and TV shows with handheld camerawork difficult, indeed painful, to watch. My attention span could be measured in minutes and hours, not milliseconds and sound bites. I was a trained systematic zoologist, a profession dedicated to compulsive organization of vast amounts of data. No, I couldn't have ADHD.

But as we discussed my symptoms, it became clear that kids do not have a monopoly on brain chemical imbalances. I had all the usual symptomatic suspects. Despite earning my two masters and a doctorate, school had always been excruciatingly painful for me, from staying still in my seat to following laboriously slow lectures. I tested poorly because I either read too much into a question or knew about the rare exceptions. In conversations, I often completed other people's sentences.

Getting to sleep was always an ordeal because my thoughts would not turn off. Though I am very goal oriented, I found it difficult to complete some tasks because I had so many projects going on simultaneously. For example, I had spent a year writing a CD-ROM key to the sharks and rays of the world, but had put off getting it commercially published. On some tasks I focused like a laser, while on others I was dim as a candle. I saw my own physician and a neuropsychologist and, sure enough, got the ADHD diagnosis.

ADHD, first described as "defect of moral control" by an English physician in 1902, is a simple failure of the brain to balance levels of neurotransmitters called dopamine and norepinephrine, which help regulate moods. My diagnosis and subsequent treatment with Adderall radically and swiftly changed my life for the better. This amphetamine--an "upper"--actually quiets the ADHD personality. My hunger cravings are gone, I sleep well, get more things done, do them better, and haven't gotten on anyone's nerves lately--especially my long-suffering wife of thirty years! Overall, I have been clam and happy--not excited or ecstatic--every day since treatment began. Best and strangest of all, I now have only one thought in my head at any time. It is the psychological equivalent, I think, of having sent all the kids off to college, and I get the house to myself.

There has always been stigma attached to mental illness; it's "all in our heads." Mental difficulties are still seen as other than physical or physiological, and even Congress refuses to recognize mental illness for what it is. This stigma is devastating. As a zoologist, I understand how my insides work, so it didn't affect my decision to be treated, but for most people, being "mentally ill" ranks in the bad news category with heart problems or cancer--or worse! People who could benefit deny themselves help that could substantially improve the quality of their lives. We do not mock a person with a faulty heart for taking nitroglycerin; a person with a defective pancreas for taking insulin; or any of us with an overwhelmed or compromised immune system for taking antibiotics.

Even Viagra jokes are rare these days. Why, then, do we see such intolerance when another organ, the brain, is ill? Many influential people had ADHD, including Dustin Hoffman, Will Smith, Jimmy Stewart, Vincent van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, and, of course, Robin Williams. Brain disorders are real physical manifestations that can often be simply treated. Unless our brains get moved elsewhere, mental illnesses will always "be in our heads." Those of us who can benefit from medication should take it, and the rest of us should support our loved ones who need it. It will make things much happier in our hearts and in our heads.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr._Robert_Sprackland


http://EzineArticles.com/?Adult-ADHD&id=129555

ADHD Drug Treatment and Academics

By Tess Messer

Many patients, parents and providers have questions about the academic benefits brought about by the use of childhood ADHD medication. Practical questions such as whether continued stimulant medication use results in permanent cognitive improvement or deterioration have been difficult to answer but medical studies have provided some insight into questions such as these.

Animal studies have suggested that stimulant use during pre-adolescence may predispose individuals to problems with motivation as adults but there are not many human studies looking at the question of ADHD drug treatment and academic improvement. One of the studies that tried to answer this question is the Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study (MTA).

The MTA study occurred at multiple sites and was designed to evaluate the short and long term benefits of ADHD treatment. The study included nearly 600 children, ages 7-9, who were randomly assigned to one of four treatment options. The treatment options included:

• Intensive medication management alone;
• Intensive behavioral treatment alone;
• A combination of both; or
• Routine community care (the control group).

The MTA treatment lasted for 14 months. After the fourteen months, the children were referred back to their community providers. Some of the children continued to receive treatment. Others discontinued their treatment or changed it, based on their individual situation. All the study participants were invited, by the National Institutes of Mental Health, to return to the MTA clinics every one to two years for a check-up of their ADHD symptoms and for an evaluation of their level of functioning.

The initial results of this study indicated that the best treatment for ADHD included a combination of medication and behavioral treatment but after eight years the MTA researchers found that there were no differences in symptoms or functioning among the kids assigned to the four different treatment groups. Children who were no longer taking medication at the eight-year follow-up were generally functioning as well (or as poorly) as children who were still medicated, raising questions about whether medication treatment beyond two years continues to be beneficial or needed by all.

Sixty percent of children who had been medicated during the trial were no longer on medication eight years later. As a whole, the ADHD kids were found to have more academic and social problems compared with their peers who did not have ADHD. They also had more conduct problems including run-ins with police, as well as more depression, and psychiatric hospitalizations.

On the positive side, the kids who had responded well to any treatment and maintained their gains for two more years tended to be doing the best at eight years. The MTA researchers suggested that ADHD treatments might work more effectively if they were adapted to the specific symptoms of individual children taking into account the changing needs of children and teenagers. The researchers also suggested that this type of approach might be more acceptable to patients and families and, over the long run, might provide better continued treatment and outcomes.

Understanding how drug treatment or other treatments affect people with ADHD in the long term is complicated. Individual genetic and environmental factors will affect treatment response and long term benefits and detriments. Understanding the interaction of specific treatments, genetics and the environment will require more study. Though there is little disagreement, in the medical community, about the long term negative effects of not treating ADHD. There is less agreement about how best to treat ADHD symptoms in the long term and about which treatments provide the longest lasting benefits with the fewest risks.

Visit Tess at http://primarilyinattentiveadd.com for a link to Commanding Attention: A Parent and Patient Guide to More ADHD treatment and for more resources and information on the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tess_Messer


http://EzineArticles.com/?ADHD-Drug-Treatment-and-Academics&id=7460285

Everybody Sees What You Didn't Do

I am 68 years old, but I can remember in 1st grade in the early 1950's working my butt off to do something and standing there afterwards proud of my efforts. Then, someone, usually a nun, since I went to Catholic school, told me about all the things I HAD NOT done.

I would clean a room and then find out that it was still filthy. I would finish a book report and find out that I had left out all kinds of important things.

Even in my 40's, in the army, I would work until I was about to drop to do something well, and then be told about several things I had left undone.

It seemed I could never satisfy anyone, and, one of the reasons seemed to be that I did not see what others saw. I would be told to clean up a room, for example, and stare at it for several minutes trying to figure out what was wrong that needed to be changed! Or, if it was bad enough to get through to my brain, stand there and feel my brain shutting down due to an inability to understand how or where to start.

Things became worse when I already had something on my mind. I spent part of my life in Lost in Space robot mode, my brain screaming, "Overload! Overload! Overload!"

I don't know how to convey to people without ADHD what it is like to have it. I don't know how to convey how painful it is to recognize, day after day, that you have once again screwed up something very simple.

Even those who care about you and realize that you have this problem consider it to be just an annoyance to you, not realizing that, for some, at least, it is a constant and painful thing, like some crippling childhood disease which you never grew out of.

I don't want to compare myself to someone who has lost a limb, but it allows me to make an analogy. Having ADHD, for me, is a bit like losing that limb and having to stand and watch others play because I don't have a wheelchair or crutch.

Good Article: on Adult ADHD

"People think adults with ADHD choose to be lazy, unproductive or squander their assets. Apart from the diagnosis not being recognized, the disorder isn’t viewed as a serious neurological condition like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, which it is."

This quote is from the online article, Expert Tips for Adults with ADHD - Adult ADHD Symptoms Aren’t Like a Child’s, By Jennifer Oldham. It's a good article for those adults who have ADHD, and maybe even MORE IMPORTANT for those who have to live with them.

Heck, WE already KNOW we're screwed up! We've been dealing with it for years. We have some understanding of what's happening, even if we don't know why or blame ourselves.

Those around us just think we're lazy, crazy, stupid, not teachable, a pain in the....

Well, they have THEIR problems...but sometimes we're IT.

Read the article, and check out these books which are recommended in the article:

Taking Charge of Adult ADHD

Scattered Minds: Hope and Help for Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder