inattention

How COVID-related stress can disrupt your brain circuits and nine tips to prevent it

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COVID-19 has touched each of us some­how. Many now rec­og­nize that car­ing for our men­tal health is as essen­tial as address­ing the virus if we are to emerge stronger, more con­nect­ed and more resilient.

The Ancient Greeks said “know thy­self” to live sound­ly, but it is only now that we have the tech­nol­o­gy to start under­stand­ing how our indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences arise from the com­plex­i­ty of our brains. [Read more…] about How COVID-relat­ed stress can dis­rupt your brain cir­cuits and nine tips to pre­vent it

Discouraging new findings about pediatric care for children with ADHD: Often, best-practice guidelines are not followed

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Most chil­dren with ADHD receive their care from com­mu­ni­ty-based pedi­a­tri­cians. Giv­en the large num­ber of school-age chil­dren who require eval­u­a­tion and treat­ment ser­vices for ADHD, and the adverse impact that poor qual­i­ty care can have on chil­dren’s devel­op­ment, it is impor­tant for chil­dren to rou­tine­ly receive care in the com­mu­ni­ty that is con­sis­tent with best-prac­tice guide­lines. [Read more…] about Dis­cour­ag­ing new find­ings about pedi­atric care for chil­dren with ADHD: Often, best-prac­tice guide­lines are not followed

FDA clears use of online cognitive/ behavioral assessment to inform ADHD diagnosis

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media_QbTest-adult
– Pre­vi­ous test (QbTest), which required use of two periph­er­al devices, a small but­ton and a camera.

Qbtech receives FDA clear­ance for online test that assess­es ADHD (Mobi­Health News):

“Swe­den-based Qbtech has received an FDA 510(k) clear­ance for an online tool, called QbCheck, that offers clin­i­cal deci­sion-mak­ing sup­port for diag­nos­ing and treat­ing chil­dren with ADHD [Read more…] about FDA clears use of online cognitive/ behav­ioral assess­ment to inform ADHD diagnosis

Study finds large gaps between research and practice in ADHD diagnosis and treatment

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doctor-office-illustration—

Most chil­dren with ADHD receive their care from com­mu­ni­ty-based pedi­a­tri­cians. Giv­en the large num­ber of school-age chil­dren who require eval­u­a­tion and treat­ment ser­vices for ADHD, and the adverse impact that poor qual­i­ty care can have on chil­dren’s devel­op­ment, it is impor­tant for chil­dren to rou­tine­ly receive care in the com­mu­ni­ty that is con­sis­tent with best-prac­tice guidelines.

The Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics has clear­ly rec­og­nized this and pub­lished guide­lines for [Read more…] about Study finds large gaps between research and prac­tice in ADHD diag­no­sis and treatment

Attention Deficits At Work

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We have all heard about chil­dren who have Atten­tion Deficit/Hyperactivity Dis­or­der (AD/HD). Indeed, this con­di­tion seems to affect 5 to 8% of school age chil­dren. Have you ever won­dered what hap­pen to these chil­dren? As many as 60% of them become adults pre­sent­ing AD/HD symp­toms! Ron de Graaf and col­leagues recent­ly pub­lished a study in which they found that an aver­age of 3.5% of work­ers (in ten coun­tries) meet the cri­te­ria for adult ADHD. As you can imag­ine, being an adult with AD/HD can be a chal­lenge at work.

Before we explore this issue let’s start by describ­ing the symp­toms of ADHD.

What is adult AD/HD?

AD/HD is a dis­or­der of the brain. Research clear­ly indi­cates that AD/HD is to a large extent genet­ic, that is it tends to run in fam­i­lies. How­ev­er, AD/HD is a com­plex dis­or­der and oth­er causal fac­tors may be at play.

Typ­i­cal­ly, the symp­toms arise in ear­ly child­hood, unless they are asso­ci­at­ed with some type of brain injury lat­er in life. Some peo­ple have mild AD/HD with only a few symp­toms while oth­ers have more seri­ous AD/HD with more symptoms.

Symp­toms of inat­ten­tion (adapt­ed from the DSM-IV)

[Read more…] about Atten­tion Deficits At Work