Legitimacy of ADD/ADHD (scientific discussion)

Cillie

There is an evaluation test that I did when I was small but the details of this is very hazy as it was so long ago. The best way to evaluate someone's mental state is to have them talk to a psychologist. I don't know the details of how exactly they evaluate you either though. The thing is there isn't a full proof way of diagnosing some disorders, its not like testing for a virus where you either have it or not, it depends on to what extent you have ADHD, which is also why ritalin comes in all kinds of forms and doses.

DaleSpam

There are some diseases where the therapy is developed before a medical diagnostic test was available. There are other diseases where the medical diagnostic test was developed before a therapy was available. I don't know of any disease where both were developed at the same time.

ADD is the of the former type, there is a therapy, but no medical diagnostic test. So there is no doubt that once we do develop a medical diagnostic test we will find that we are currently treating many patients who do not have the underlying medical condition and that we are not treating many patients who do. Such is the nature of any therapy without a medical diagnostic test (and many therapies with a test).

There is at this time no way to determine if a given individual fits into the "over-diagnosed" or "under-treated" category.

Cillie

Actually I just thought of a possible way it can be medically shown that someone has ADHD at least one type of it anyway. One symptom is that concentration is broken when to much pressure is applied on the act of concentration. This can be overcome by use of adrenalin. Thus it should be possible to observe these changes in an MRI scanner.