News about ADHD and ADD

Brain scans shed light on ADHD kids

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Brain scans on Australian kids with ADHD have shed light on why they have trouble remembering and don't recognise distractions.

Helping a Child with ADHD Get to Sleep

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Children with ADD/ADHD sometimes have a hard time falling asleep. They may toss and turn or they may just not be able to shut down their thoughts long enough for sleep to come. In the summer months, when outside activity is higher and the sun stays out much longer, sleep may not come until well after parents are exhausted. The following are some tips to help your child fall asleep quicker.

Parenting a child with ADHD

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Consistence is the key to success in effective parenting of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Give love and attention with firm limit setting. Be positive with your child. Tell him/her what you want, not what you don't want. The emphasis should be on what is to be done as opposed to what is to be stopped. Don't punish your child for things beyond his/her control, such as impulsive behaviour or inattention.

ADHD diagnosis is easy way out

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Having spent 10 years in the public school systems as a school psychologist, I am disturbed by the upward trend in the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD is the most popular childhood diagnosis today. Estimates of this diagnosis range from 3 to 10 percent of public school students.

Children with ADHD often show deficits in working memory functions

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Besides attention problems, children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often show deficits in working memory functions. Working memory maintains and manipulates information and is crucial for every-day functioning. Methylphenidate (MPH) is a potent medication to improve the performance in several cognitive tasks. However, it is not yet clear which effect MPH has on the underlying functional networks in the brain. Recently, 6 boys with ADHD and 6 healthy boys were studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Each patient was tested twice, once with MPH and once without. During imaging in the MRI Scanner, all participants performed a working memory task with increasing difficulty.

The results of the easiest task showed no differences between groups or medication conditions. In the more difficult task, ADHD patients performed better when medicated and fMRI images showed increased frontal activation. In the most difficult task, performance of medicated patients was better than that of non-medicated patients. Likewise, brain activation increased under medication, especially in frontal and parietal regions. These areas are known to be involved in working memory processes. Activation patterns under medication resembled the ones observed in healthy boys.

These preliminary findings indicate an effect of MPH on functional networks of working memory by increasing the neural activity in parietal and frontal brain regions. This holds especially for difficult tasks. As MPH leads to activation patterns similar to the ones observed in healthy boys, the medication with MPH seems to have a "normalizing" effect on brain activation in children with ADHD.

Organization for Human Brain Mapping
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Children who suffer from ADHD have impaired brain function

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Children who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have impaired brain function, most likely linked to a genetic condition occurring during pregnancy.

Researchers have uncovered conclusive evidence that key areas of the brain in ADHD sufferers do not develop as quickly as in those children without ADHD.

Professor Alasdair Vance, academic head of child psychiatry at the Royal Children's Hospital, said the areas were related to a child's ability to encode information, hold information and understand time and space.

"So their ability to read other people's body language, to pick up on the nuances of what their peer group are up to, would clearly be affected by the sort of developmental delays in brain development that we've identified," he said.

The research is about to be published in the world's leading biological psychiatry journal, Molecular Psychiatry, and Professor Vance, who is also head of academic child psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, believes it will result in better diagnosis and treatment of the condition.

"The most exciting part of this research is the opportunity to understand in detail the brain dysfunction in this group of children so we can better understand how, by changing the child's environment, facilitated by medication treatments, we can maximise their learning."

The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain in boys aged eight to 12 who had been clinically diagnosed with ADHD but were not on medication, and compared the images to non-sufferers of the same age. All the boys were given the same mental task and their brain functions were monitored.

Professor Vance said the study proved ADHD was not just a behavioural issue.

"If it was, one would expect the child's brain would be functioning normally and that at some level they are making choices to behave in this way. This suggests they are actually activating their brain differently when they are doing the same task as a healthy kid."

He believes the research strongly suggests ADHD is a genetic condition occurring most probably during the second trimester of a woman's pregnancy, but which can be modified through medication and by adapting the child's environment.

"I'm not saying that because you have such brain changes the only treatment is medication. Environmental cueing can help those compensatory brain networks to develop."

Helping teachers and parents understand how to more frequently cue a child with ADHD through such means as positive reinforcement when the child exhibits desired behaviour and through emotional connections that reward the child for better attitudes, are just some of the ways in which the condition can be helped, Professor Vance says.

"The number and quality of empathic, confiding, nurturing, flexible and adaptive human relationships can build resilience, build compensation or, if absent, make ADHD symptoms worse," he said.

"This research has direct bearing on better early detection of true ADHD, better recognition of severity of that true ADHD and the possibility of better targeting the use of medication treatments and pyschological and social treatments to maximise the child's ability to learn."

UF to offer free ADHD treatment program

Sun, 27 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT

A free treatment program to help young children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their families will be offered through a study at the University of Florida starting this spring.

Teens with ADHD more prone to car crashes

Thu, 17 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., May 4 Distractions such as using a cell phone could lead to a car crash, especially for young U.S. drivers with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

As a group, young ADHD drivers are two to four times more likely to have a car accident than non-ADHD drivers, according to Daniel Cox, of the University of Virginia Health System.

Cox's research has compared long-acting methylphenidate, known as MPH, to extended-release amphetamine salts and found that MPH is more effective in helping young ADHD drivers pay attention.

In Cox's latest study, the researchers want to determine the MPH affects routine, daily driving of teens with ADHD.

"In controlled laboratory studies, there are no cell phones, no pressures to get home before curfew, no passengers encouraging the driver to 'get air,' no pets that slip from the driver's lap down to the pedals and no hamburger dripping with mustard in the driver's right hand," Cox said in a statement. "We want to investigate the benefits of medication in the context of such real world distractions and demands."

Kids and parents both taking ADHD drugs

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In the first major study of the use of medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), researchers found that parents of children on ADHD drugs were nine times more likely than other parents to use the drugs as well. As well, they found that if at least one parent and child were taking an ADHD medication, a second child was more likely to do so, too.

Physicians have long understood that ADHD runs in families and the findings of this new study support what they see in their practices, but not without some surprising discoveries.

In families where a parent and child both began taking ADHD medications last year, nearly half the time the parent did so first, according to the study. According to Dr. Thomas E. Brown, associate director of the Yale Clinic for Attention and Related Disorders, “Usually it’s the kid first, then the parent.”

In households where a parent and child first began taking the drugs last year, nearly 60% of the time it was the mother rather than the father, though ADHD is 2 to 3 times more common in men than women.

Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Schneider Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park, NY, explained that more women are being examined for attention deficit problems.

The study, by prescription benefit manager Medco Health Solutions, was based on analysis of prescription claims filed in 2005 for more than 107,000 children aged 5-19 and their parents.

Among children taking ADHD medications, 7% had a parent also on the medicine. Among twins with one taking an ADHD drug, there was a 25% chance the other was also on the drug – 33% if both twins were male.

Brown explained, “When people have the opportunity to see how much these medications improve a person’s function and they see it every day in their own family, they’re more likely to consider using these medicines.” He also said people would be less deterred by heavily publicized side effects.

Continuing, Brown said that the drugs are safe for most people and that the risks of alcohol and drug abuse, plus work and family issues, are much higher for those that don’t receive adhd treatment.

The average age for patients to begin ADHD drug therapy was 43 for adults and 13 for children. Experts say attention problems become most obvious when kids hit middle and high school.

According to Medco, between 2000 and 2004 ADHD drug-use rose about twice as fast among adults as children and climbed at a much higher rate among women than men.

Study: ADD children face alcohol problems later

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

KDKA) PITTSBURGH A new study from University of Pittsburgh researchers shows children with attention deficit disorder are at higher risk for alcohol and substance abuse problems later in life.

"It wasn't long ago that pediatricians were telling parents it will go away, the disorder," said Dr. Brooke Molina.

One study has followed more than 300 kids from childhood.

"For the majority of them, the disorder does not go away," said Dr. Molina. "Two thirds of these children continue to suffer the symptoms of ADHD into adolescence, and that's impulsivity, difficulty with paying attention, being hyper."

It turns out, the risk for problem drinking in adolescence is higher if kids have ADHD in childhood, if parents have problems with alcohol, or if there's fighting in the family or with friends.

For kids with ADHD, problems can start even in the pre-teen years.

"The message for parents here is in the middle school age range, they need to keep their antennae up and keep a close eye on their kids," said Dr. Molina. "Maybe these kids gravitate to peer groups that support use, heavier use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Self-medication may be part of this as use becomes more involved."

The reasons may be clearer after more studies.