ADHD-diagnosis

Study: Fewer than 19% of ADHD treatment plans monitor treatment response according to guidelines

by

adhd-workingmemoryWhat did they find (at a recent study, pub­lished in the jour­nal Pedi­atrics, sur­vey­ing com­mu­ni­ty-based ADHD diag­noses and treatments)?

  • For around 30 per­cent of chil­dren diag­nosed with ADHD, the evi­dence that DSM cri­te­ria were met was missing.
  • ADHD rat­ing scales were col­lect­ed from par­ents and teach­ers for only 56 per­cent of youth with an ADHD diagnosis.

[Read more…] about Study: Few­er than 19% of ADHD treat­ment plans mon­i­tor treat­ment response accord­ing to guidelines

5 Reasons Why Parents of Children with ADHD Need to Become Proactive, Well-Informed Advocates

by

.

Most chil­dren with ADHD receive their care from com­mu­ni­ty-based pedi­a­tri­cians, so it is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for that care to be con­sis­tent with best-prac­tice guidelines.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all too often it is not.

The guidelines

Here is a brief sum­ma­ry of some key ADHD guide­lines pub­lished by the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics [Read more…] about 5 Rea­sons Why Par­ents of Chil­dren with ADHD Need to Become Proac­tive, Well-Informed Advocates

Update: 40% of ADHD diagnoses, 70% of treatment plans, fall short of AAP guidelines

by

ADHDTime for Sharp­Brains’ Decem­ber e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a wide range of insights on brain health and inno­va­tion, and a deep analy­sis of this new study that found large gaps between research and prac­tice in ADHD diag­no­sis and treat­ment. Did you know, for exam­ple, that over 40% of diag­noses, and over 70% of the treat­ment plans, fall short of the guide­lines estab­lished by the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Pediatrics?

New research:

New think­ing:

New tools:

Final­ly, we are proud to share that The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance is Ama­zon’s #1 Best­seller in Pre­ven­tive Med­i­cine (and the Span­ish edi­tion is #1 en Med­i­c­i­na).

Have a great 2015! Feliz 2015!

Study: Use of methylphenidate-based ADHD medication increases the risk of heart problems

by

Methylphenidate_pillsADHD med­ica­tion enhances the risk of heart prob­lems in chil­dren (Sci­ence Nordic):

“The risk of devel­op­ing heart prob­lems is twice as big for chil­dren tak­ing med­i­cine for Atten­tion Deficit-Hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty Dis­or­der (ADHD) when com­pared to chil­dren not receiv­ing the medicine…The study builds on data from 714,000 chil­dren [Read more…] about Study: Use of methylphenidate-based ADHD med­ica­tion increas­es the risk of heart problems

Neurofeedback/ Quantitative EEG for ADHD diagnosis

by

Like all psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, ADHD is diag­nosed based on the pres­ence of par­tic­u­lar behav­ioral symp­toms that are judged to cause sig­nif­i­cant impair­ment in an indi­vid­u­al’s func­tion­ing, and not on the results of a spe­cif­ic test. In fact, recent­ly pub­lished ADHD eval­u­a­tion guide­lines from the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics (AAP) explic­it­ly state that no par­tic­u­lar diag­nos­tic test should be rou­tine­ly used when eval­u­at­ing a child for ADHD.

While most ADHD experts would agree that no sin­gle test could or should be used in iso­la­tion to diag­nose ADHD, there are sev­er­al impor­tant rea­sons why the avail­abil­i­ty of an accu­rate objec­tive test would be useful.

First, many chil­dren do not receive a care­ful and com­pre­hen­sive assess­ment for ADHD but are instead diag­nosed with based on eval­u­a­tion pro­ce­dures that are far from optimal.

Sec­ond, although AAP guide­lines indi­cate that spe­cif­ic diag­nos­tic tests should not be rou­tine­ly used, many par­ents are con­cerned about the lack of objec­tive pro­ce­dures in their child’s eval­u­a­tion. In fact, many fam­i­lies do not pur­sue treat­ment for ADHD because the the absence of objec­tive eval­u­a­tion pro­ce­dures leads them to ques­tion the diag­no­sis. You can read a review of an inter­est­ing study on this issue at www.helpforadd.com/2006/january.htm

For these rea­sons an accu­rate and objec­tive diag­nos­tic test for ADHD could be of val­ue in many clin­i­cal sit­u­a­tions. Two impor­tant con­di­tions would have to be met for such a test to be useful.

First, it would have to be high­ly sen­si­tive to [Read more…] about Neurofeedback/ Quan­ti­ta­tive EEG for ADHD diagnosis