Old age tends to be
linked with dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Grandma not being able to remember the conversation she just had ten
minutes ago is brushed off as a “perk” of getting older. The fact that she cannot keep focus while
trying to finish a task is acceptable because that’s what we have been told
happens when someone gets older, but what if there was another cause to her
lack of attention? There have been many
cases of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (A.D.H.D.) in children, but
what if I told you there are cases of A.D.H.D. in adults?
According to the
article in the New York Times, Is It Old
Age or A.D.H.D.?, by Judith Berck doctors have been diagnosing more and
more elderly people with A.D.H.D. Within the article we take a look at a
73-year-old widowed patient of Dr. David Goodman, an assistant professor in the
psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Johns Hopkins School of
Medicine. This woman was often losing
her pocketbook and keys and had trouble remembering a conversation minutes
after it took place. Upon reading this I
was solely taking her age into consideration and writing it off as dementia or
memory loss due to getting older, but Dr. Goodman had a different idea.
The article stated that
the doctor had taken her past into consideration when diagnosing her.
Apparently she had never had a good attention span, and would usually have to
sit in the front of the class because of it.
Through this information the doctor concluded that she had adult
A.D.H.D. and he prescribed Vyvanse to her. Within weeks she had a better
attention span and finished things that she started.
This was so fascinating
to me. I was always taught that
attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were
disorders prevalent in childhood. Even
in my neuroscience class we went over the fact that A.D.H.D. is a childhood
disorder full of impulsivity, hyperactivity, and motor impersistence. I never really saw this as a disorder in
adulthood, but now this article has opened my mind to a new way of
thinking. According to Berck’s article
doctors are not well trained on the disorder so adult cases get
overlooked. Grandma and grandpa may not
be succumbing to the terrors of old age they may just be dealing with an
undiagnosed disorder. This would open up
a whole new world for these adults.
Imagine being able to live your life in an entirely different way than
how you have been living it for the last 73 years. It would be amazing to be able to get these
people the proper medications in order to aid in their attention
disorders.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/28/is-it-alzheimers-or-a-d-h-d/
It would be interesting if suddenly many older individuals added Vyvanse to their cocktail of medications. To further appreciate these results, I think we need more longitudinal studies on attention disorders. I wonder if the older individual approached by Dr. Goodman would have been diagnosed with A.D.H.D. as a child if she was part of our generation. I know it is too late to collect that data, but I have a hunch future studies will rely on these differences to contribute to our understanding of attention disorders.
ReplyDeleteMental health in later years of life is a growing problem all over the world but I feel like it's more of an issue in the United States. The fact that modern medicine keeps improving and working towards finding solutions gives light to a bright future of pharmaceuticals. I would like to see more and more studies on this because I work as a pharmacy technician and it's generally a younger crowd that get superscribed amphetamines and not so much older people. Maybe with more and more evidence emerging through studies, it would force doctors to act and add drugs such as Vyvanse to an elderly person's regimen. I also can see why doctors would prescribe Vyvanse over adderall because people that are older don't have internal organs as healthy as young patients so the fact that Vyvanse gets absorbed through the stomach instead of the liver like adderall, makes taking it and being on it for some time easier for the older person. Overworking such a vital and sensitive organ like the liver would in-itself lead to more health complications.
ReplyDeleteAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common childhood disorders and can continue through adolescence and adulthood. As to my understanding the symptoms are the fact that you can't control your behavior, you are very hyperactive, and it is very hard for you to focus and pay any attention. I was reading an article that said why or how come they can't find the cause of ADHD, although many Some children with ADHD continue to have it as adults. And many adults who have the disorder don't know it.
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