Have hyperactive kids been misdiagnosed with ADD?
Posted on 03/10/2007 11:28:14 AM PST by Stoat
Have hyperactive kids been misdiagnosed with ADD?
The psychiatrist who identified attention deficit disorder - the condition blamed for the bad behaviour of hundreds of thousands of children - has admitted that many may not really be ill.
Dr Robert Spitzer said that up to 30 per cent of youngsters classified as suffering from disruptive and hyperactive conditions could have been misdiagnosed.
They may simply be showing perfectly normal signs of being happy or sad, he said.
'Many of these conditions might be normal reactions which are not really disorders,' he continued.
Dr Spitzer developed the bible of mental disorder classification in the 1970s and 1980s, which identified dozens of new conditions including ADD and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Since then hundreds of thousands of children have been diagnosed with ADD, a behavioural disorder linked to poor attention span, and ADHD, which adds an element of hyperactivity.
The disorders describe disruptive and restless behaviour that results in children having difficulty focusing their attention on specific tasks. ADHD is most commonly noticed at the age of five, and as many as one in 30 British children is said to have it.
It is often treated with drugs, with Ritalin being the most commonly prescribed.
Some scientists say ADHD is a genetic disorder that does not disappear with adulthood.
But sceptics believe the diagnosis is a 'biobabble' label, which has evolved from a soundbite culture that is too prepared to medicalise anti-social human traits.
Dr Spitzer, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York, now says the classification led to many people being diagnosed as medically disordered when their mood swings and behaviour were simply normal feelings of happiness and sadness.
In a BBC2 documentary series The Trap, which begins on Sunday, he says that between 20 and 30 per cent of mental disorder diagnoses may be incorrect.
His admission comes as figures show that the amount spent by the Health Service on drugs to treat ADHD and similar disorders in children trebled to £12 million in just five years, from 1999-2003.
Almost 400,000 British children aged between five and 19 are believed to be on the drugs - despite doctors' fears about side-effects.
That is the equivalent of every child in Britain each taking more than four doses of the drugs every year.
NHS guidelines recommend drug treatment for the most severely affected, although there have been reports of cardiovascular disorders, hallucinations and even suicidal thoughts.
There have been at least nine deaths reported to the UK's Medicinesand Healthcare products Regulatory Agency since Ritalin became available in the early 1990s.
But Dr Spitzer, who chaired the taskforce that compiled the international Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, said he is less concerned by wrong diagnoses and possible side-effects from drugs, than failing to prescribe them where needed.
'By and large the treatments for these disorders don't have serious side effects,' he told the Times Educational Supplement.
'I mean, some do, but they're not that serious, whereas the failure to treat can often be very hard on the child and on the family.'
He acknowledged that some parents put pressure on doctors to diagnose ADHD and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and prescribe drugs.
'We don't know to what extent that's been happening inappropriately,' he added.
Ian Graham, headmaster of Slindon College, an independent boys' boarding school near Arundel, West Sussex, has 20 out of 100 pupils diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and a few more with related diagnoses such as oppositional-defiant disorder.
About 17 of the boys are prescribed drugs including Ritalin, while the remainder have their condition controlled through diets that exclude chocolate, sweets or gluten.
The school also employs therapy techniques, and the old-fashioned tactic of getting pupils to run off their energy in outdoor activities.
Mr Graham said: 'I've never met a parent who is happy with the medication. They would all prefer not to use them, but to a man and woman, they all say they can't believe the change in their sons' ability to concentrate in lessons.'
I know this isn't directly related to public schools and homeschooling but in light of the number of kids in public schools that are on these drugs and the controversy surrounding their use and the public school system, I thought this would be good FYI.
It seemed especially relevant in light of this thread:
"Law bars schools from strong-arming parents to put kids on" - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1798557/posts psychotropics
If what you are referring to is the word "myth", that word has several definitions including:
myth - definition of myth by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
3. A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.
Several posters here have commented (accurately, in my view) that if Dr. Spitzer is admitting to a 30 % misdiagnosis, the actual number is most likely quite higher, and so it could be said that the prevalence of ADD, as commonly understood, is a 'half truth' or 'myth'.
The Daily Mail's article was also carried by This Is London, with the same title:
The great ADHD myth News This is London
That being said, the title "The Great ADHD Myth" does impart a bit of bias, in that one person's idea of a "great myth" may not necessarily be shared by others
I happen to personally prefer the Australian article's title Attention Deficit pioneer admits misdiagnosis rife but I chose to post the Daily Mail article as the lead article in this post because it had been distributed more widely than the Australian one, and so would be more likely to come up when people are doing searches here at Free Republic.
When I asked my daughters doctor once if I had home-schooled her would she not have ADHD she told me it probably would have made no difference. She further said that about 1/3 of the kids in her practice have ADHD and are being home-schooled. She did not tell me 1/3 were medicated, or that she sees all the kids in the district, or how many children she sees, or any other information. Just that about 1/3 of the kids in her practice had ADHD and were home schooled. This question and comment were asked quite a while ago. Probably around 10 years or so. I haven't asked her since then if the numbers are still the same. If I think about it the next time I see her I might ask again. But then again, since my daughter is 20, she doesn't really require Mommy when she goes to the doctor.
FWIW this doctor and I worked together for quite a while to stay away from medications for my daughter. We tried alternative diets, counseling, behavior modifications, supplements, and even hypnosis. We went the medication route after 2 years of trying/failing. It was during this time I briefly home-schooled her and when I saw 1 on 1 what was going on with my kid, I decided to try meds. They were the only thing that worked for her.
ADD and ADHD usually stem from PPP.
Piss Poor Parenting
I cannot wait to read the clueless ignorance that this thread will attract of folks who think this article is proof ADD doesn't exist and doesn't devastate many who suffer from it.
I can't wait for the proponents of overdiagnosing ADD/ADHD to come out of the woodwork now and call this guy a "ADD Denier", like in the 'global warming' crowd...
FYI, despite the lunatic rantings of Neal Boortz, there is SOMETHING that has been identified, and is a problem.
My oldest child has been diagnosed as having ADHD. He doesn't have behavioral problems. He is not a problem child.
He has a problem with processing information. Some days, he is fine. Other days, you give him some math problems, or logical problems to solve, and he just cannot do them. The medication helps on those days.
Some clues to look for:
1. While reading, your child may skip words or skip some of the syllables in long words.
2. When describing something or asking questions, your child may skip words in the sentence.
This is not dyslexia, we've had him checked for that.
3. Look for signs if some OCD (Obsessive Complusive Disorder). They may not be strong, but there is probably something about which he has OCD.
In our case, this is not a behavorial problem. This is an information processing problem. It may be wrong to call it ADHD, but it IS a valid problem that is, at least partially, remedied by medication.
The same thing is now happening with autism and Asperger's disorder. The money that can be made from promoting hysteria regarding disease is limitless.
You wouldn't assault your child to cure Multiple Sclerosis, would you? Then why would you assault a child to cure ADD? It doesn't work.
Yes, it's overdiagnosed, but parents who put their kids on ritalin with a proper diagnosis are being good parents. Parents who do not do a full complement of research and ge multiple opinions, and use it as a copout, just plain suck.
8mm
Sure it did. Remember the kids who took shop and dropped out at 16?
HISTORY PART 1
In more recent history, ADHD symptoms were recorded in the mid 1800s in children with nervous system injuries and diseases. In 1848, a German physician wrote a children’s’ story, “Fidgety Phil”, describing hyperactive behavior.
British pediatrician, George Frederic Still was probably the first to do any comprehensive observations of ADHD children. He reported his observations in a series of lectures at the Royal College of Physicians in 1902. He described the children he observed as aggressive, defiant, lawless, overactive, attention impaired, dishonest and accident-prone. He also described them as having a “defect in moral control”. He didn’t paint a very pretty picture of the disorder for sure! His observations went on to note that the behavior was biological rather than a result of poor parenting. He theorized that the behavior was either inherited or the result of an injury at birth.
After an encephalitis epidemic in 1917-18, doctors noted that many children showed the symptoms that Still described. Doctors speculated that the behaviors were a result of brain damage. Children who displayed symptoms were labeled as brain damaged. Even if they did not suffer from encephalitis, they were give the “brain damaged” label. Later, when doctors realized that many of these children were too bright to have suffered brain damage, the disorder was labeled “minimal brain damage” and even later, “minimal brain dysfunction”.
As far back as 1937, doctors discovered that amphetamines were helpful in reducing hyperactive and impulsive behavior. Even with this knowledge, stimulant medications were not used much for treatment until the 1950s and 60s when there was an increase in psychiatric drug intervention. By the mid 1960s, stimulants were a common treatment.
parenting, fIn the early 1960s, Stella Chase and other researchers described “Hyperactive Child Syndrome”. Chase felt that the syndrome had a biological cause. Many others at the time believed the cause to be environmental. Many times poor ood additive and environmental toxins have been blamed for a child’s ADHD behavior. Some of these environmental theories still persist, but with recent brain chemical studies, environmental theories are getting harder to buy into. There is simply too much research showing that the cause lies in the biochemical processes -- in the neurotransmitters in the brain, and that it has a genetic factor.
an Studies ADHD advances continue. Many of these advances have helped to dispel many of the myths about ADHD. Studies now show that adults can exhibit symptoms just band it’s not Boys that can have ADHD
http://www.freewebs.com/historyofadhd/
That being said, I think parents and teachers in the 50's handled these symptoms in a different way than now. Back then there was great pressure to conform, now parents are quick to find any medicinal answer - and that's not just for ADHD, but for all illnesses.
All children are home-schooled from the beginning of life. Mom, Dad, and the extended family are the first teachers.
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