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Unlike illegal drugs, prescription stimulants are effective and safe treatments for many people with ADHD. However, people taking stimulants should be carefully monitored for signs of abuse and dependence.
ADHD may look like a lack of willpower or an excuse for laziness when it’s not. ADHD is really a problem with the chemical dynamics of the brain. It is not under voluntary control!
Parents with ADHD are likely to carry a high load of ADHD-related variants in their genes, and they are more likely than parents without ADHD to pass some of them on to their children.
Research has found that the symptoms of ADHD in males and females are more alike than different. But when you ask men and women about their lived experiences with ADHD, you are likely to find some striking differences.
Throughout its 240+ year history in the medical literature, ADHD was known to be associated with significant problems with impulsive emotion and poor emotional self-regulation so much so that some theorists considered it a core feature of the disorder.
ADHD is estimated to be present in 5.29% of the children worldwide. In adults, this is between 2.8 and 4.4%. These are averages: estimates vary in different countries.
In most people having the diagnosis, ADHD is likely to be the result of their genetic make-up (i.e. their DNA) and events that happen to them throughout life. Together, these may cause slight differences in the development of the brain, as we see them in people with ADHD.
ADHD involves problems with setting priorities, getting organized and getting started; sustaining attention and effort, managing alertness and emotions; utilizing working memory and other aspects of the brain’s self-management system, its “executive functions.”