Not only children adults get sick with ADHD

Not only in children: Adults also have ADHD

03/01/2015

Not only do many children suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but adults can also be affected. However, the disease is less common in adults and has a different face. Some sufferers even benefit from it, says a researcher.

Childhood behavior has not been linked to ADHD
Bernadette Frisch was 28 years old when she was diagnosed with ADHD, the news agency dpa reports. „I was totally shocked“, says the 30-year-old today. During childhood, her behavior had never been linked to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Since she was slow, dreamy, insecure and clumsy, it seemed more like the opposite of the so-called „Hyperactivity syndrome“. But during her studies, her problems grew and she became anxious, became depressed and was close to a nervous breakdown. According to her, her apartment is chaotic and her life an eternal construction site: „I can organize myself incredibly badly.“

Extremely well focused on short term goal
But even if she is still on the search for the right path, she can concentrate extremely well on a short-term goal. „I can totally exhaust myself, but I can not do one step at a time“, explains the Fränkin. She works to total exhaustion when she's in something, but when she's interrupted, she does not have the strength to start over. Because then something else beats their attention. The 30-year-old tells: „I am always under an incredible inner pressure.“ She speaks fast and much, is motorically quieter than before and her extrovert appearance and her funky appearance are no longer so pronounced. As she says, she works in an artistic profession and there fits her style „into the picture“. „With the crazy-artist-myth you can also make that even beautiful.“ A psychiatrist suggested two years ago that she would do an ADHD questionnaire: she was a typical case.

Many convicts with ADHD
As Prof. Andreas Reif, Director of the Department of Psychiatry at the Frankfurt University Hospital explains, ADHD looks different in adults than in children. The expert had led the clinical focus on ADHD in adulthood in Würzburg before moving to Frankfurt in 2014. Reif calls three main symptoms: inner restlessness, impulsivity and difficulty in regulating attention and mood. Patients on the one hand can be extremely easily distracted, on the other hand „focus on“ she a detail. This can even be helpful in some areas. Reif explains: „Many seek the extreme, the kick. Anyone who is able to use this positively is capable of peak performance.“ The expert continues: „It can be said that these patients are also bringing our society on.“ However, one finds also with convicts above average number of people with ADHD. „One brings the disease to jail, the other on the pedestal - depending on what is added to life history and biology“, says the psychiatrist provocatively.

Half of the disease disappears as it grows
Although about half of ADHD children lose the disease while growing up, the majority of the other half retains individual symptoms without being sick. „Only at 15 percent the symptoms have disease value. That's about one percent of the population“, so mature. Senior physician Sarah Kittel-Schneider explains that adult ADH often hides behind side effects. Many adult ADHD patients have depression, anxiety disorders or addictions and therefore sought help. „They use much more power to lead a normal life and are at a higher risk of developing other mental disorders.“

Lower life expectancy in ADHD
A Danish study recently published in the journal „The Lancet“ published, shows that people with ADHD have a lower life expectancy and a doubled risk of dying prematurely. In the study, Søren Dalsgaard from the University of Aarhus compared the CVs of nearly two million Danes with those of 32,000 ADHD patients and found that an above-average number of them died, for example after accidents. Basically, it has to be said that the disease is poorly understood in adults, as experts have long assumed that the disorder affects only children and adolescents. Or even that the disease does not exist. Prof. Reif holds the widespread view that ADHD is a fictitious fashion diagnosis or a marketing idea of ​​the pharmaceutical industry, for „absolute humbug“. „These are prejudices that are not covered by facts. The disease really exists, there is no doubt about it in scientific medicine. It causes considerable suffering, but it can also be treated well.“

Some older doctors do not even recognize illness
Not all doctors see it that way. Kittel-Schneider says that many colleagues would not recognize ADHD in adults. „Older colleagues do not even recognize the disease as such.“ And even those affected are therefore not always open to the diagnosis. „Some see it as part of their personality - that's fine, of course“, so Kittel-Schneider. „You do not have to call that a disease if people manage it fairly well in life.“ Basic research is also important because of the difficult diagnosis. „We want to understand the neurobiology behind the disease“, Reif explains a goal of his workgroup. Have ADHD „with the highest genetic component of all psychiatric disorders“ and that should be used, for example for new drugs. His group is also looking for „biomarkers“, to make the diagnosis faster and safer. It was „even more air“ in research. It is estimated that about two to six percent of children and adolescents throughout Germany suffer from ADHD. In recent years, the number of diagnoses has steadily increased. In boys, the mental disorder is about three to four times more common than in girls. Also, the number of young adults who have been treated for ADHD medication, has increased significantly in recent years. (Ad)

Denise