Legitimacy of ADD/ADHD (scientific discussion)

  • Medical
  • Thread starter ander
  • Start date
  • Tags
    Discussion
In summary: After many years of mental health treatment, untreated ADD has come up as a possibility. I have been prescribed accordingly, etc. so I'm not asking for medical advice. Anyway,For the past week I've been reading on the internet about ADD to educate myself about the disorder, but I've mostly found extreme views (ADD is a conspiracy manufactured by big pharma, turn to Jesus) that didn't present any evidence or sound arguments. So, is ADD 'real'? Is it overdiagnosed?Reputable sources/thoughtful replies preferred, since this seems to be such a contentious subject. Some diseases like cancer are acute. You either have it or you don't. Others, such as autism, exist
  • #36
ander said:
So, is ADD 'real'? Is it overdiagnosed?
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.
 
Biology news on Phys.org
  • #37
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.
 

Similar threads

Replies
2
Views
1K
Replies
5
Views
2K
Replies
19
Views
10K
Replies
12
Views
6K
Replies
7
Views
4K
Replies
6
Views
1K
Replies
8
Views
9K
Back
Top