Publications - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Lie down, sit still, take a break: Your brain needs a rest, by Jamie Friedlander Serrano, The Washington Post, Jun 29 2024.

“Downtime is a necessary part of life. Science shows it helps us to be healthier, more focused, more productive and more creative. Yet, somehow, we often lose sight of this. “Downtime is important for our health and our body, but also for our minds,” says Elissa Epel, a professor in the psychiatry department at the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. Epel and others acknowledge that many of us feel as though we’re wasting time if we aren’t getting things done, but research points to the costs of always being “on” and the importance of giving our brains a break. Our brains aren’t built to handle constant activity. ”

​Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere, by Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris, The New York Times, Mar 29 2024.

“In the four years since the pandemic closed schools, U.S. education has struggled to recover on a number of fronts, from learning loss, to enrollment, to student behavior. But perhaps no issue has been as stubborn and pervasive as a sharp increase in student absenteeism, a problem that cuts across demographics and has continued long after schools reopened. Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic, according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. Chronic absence is typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days, for any reason. ”

When Teens Visit Doctors, Increasingly the Subject is Mental Health, by Matt Richtel, The New York Times, Mar 7 2024.

“Increasingly, doctor visits by adolescents and young adults involve mental health diagnoses, along with the prescription of psychiatric medications. That was the conclusion of a new study that found that in 2019, 17 percent of outpatient doctor visits for patients ages 13 to 24 in the United States involved a behavioral or mental health condition, including anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm or other issues. That figure rose sharply from 2006, when just 9 percent of doctor’s visits involved psychiatric illnesses. The study, published Thursday in JAMA Network Open, also found a sharp increase in the proportion of visits involving psychiatric medications. In 2019, 22.4 percent of outpatient visits by the 13-24 age group involved the prescription of at least one psychiatric drug, up from 13 percent in 2006. The latest study does not posit a reason for the shift. But the pandemic alone was not to blame, it noted. “These findings suggest the increase in mental health conditions seen among youth during the pandemic occurred in the setting of already increasing rates of psychiatric illness,” wrote the authors, a pediatrician and psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School. “Treatment and prevention strategies will need to account for factors beyond the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic.” ”

One Twin Was Hurt, the Other Was Not. Their Adult Mental Health Diverged., by Ellen Barry, The New York Times, Mar 6 2024.

“Why do twins, who share so many genetic and environmental inputs, diverge as adults in their experience of mental illness? On Wednesday, a team of researchers from the University of Iceland and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden reported new findings on the role played by childhood trauma. Their study of 25,252 adult twins in Sweden, published in JAMA Psychiatry, found that those who reported one or more trauma in childhood — physical or emotional neglect or abuse, rape, sexual abuse, hate crimes or witnessing domestic violence — were 2.4 times as likely to be diagnosed with a psychiatric illness as those who did not. If a person reported one or more of these experiences, the odds of being diagnosed with a mental illness climbed sharply, by 52 percent for each additional adverse experience. Among participants who reported three or more adverse experiences, nearly a quarter had a psychiatric diagnosis of depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, substance abuse disorder or stress disorder. To disentangle the effects of these traumas from genetic or environmental factors, the researchers narrowed the pool to “discordant” pairs, in which only one twin reported maltreatment in childhood. An analysis of 6,852 twins from these discordant pairs found that childhood maltreatment was still linked with adult mental illness, though not as strongly as in the full cohort. A twin who reported maltreatment was 1.2 times as likely to suffer from a mental illness as the unaffected twin in identical twin pairs, and 1.7 times as likely in fraternal twin pairs. This effect was especially pronounced among subjects who reported experiencing sexual abuse, rape and physical neglect. ”

ADHD Specialists Worry Stimulant Drugs Are Overprescribed, Push for Treatment Guidelines, by Rolfe Winkler, The Wall Street Journal, Sep 1 2022.

“A group of specialists in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder plan to create the first U.S. guidelines for diagnosing and treating the condition in adults, partly due to the proliferation of telehealth companies that they worry are prescribing stimulant medications irresponsibly.  Led by the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders, the effort is motivated in part by growing demand for ADHD treatment and medication, particularly during the pandemic when more mental-health care has been taking place online, members say.  Social-media content about ADHD, including advertising by companies such as Cerebral Inc. and Done Global Inc., has driven an uptick in patients who believe they have ADHD and are seeking treatment, said Ann Childress, the group’s president. As a result, more clinicians without ADHD experience are being asked about it, she said.  “We want to make sure that all ADHD medications are prescribed appropriately and that everyone has access to high-quality evaluations,” said Dr. Childress. ”

It’s Science: Preschool play protects your child’s mental health later in life, by Kristen Fischer, Motherly, Jul 5 2022.

“Preschoolers who learn to play well with others have better mental health as they age, according to a recent study. The research looked at “peer play ability,” an indicator of how well kids play with each other.  The report provides the first clear evidence that peer play ability “has a protective effect on mental health,” the authors said in a statement. The study appeared in Child Psychiatry and Human Development.  Three-year-olds who had better peer play ability consistently had fewer signs of poor mental health when they were 7 years old. That is, their parents and teachers reported fewer emotional issues and conduct problems, they were less likely to get into spats with other kids, and they had lower hyperactivity.  ”

A Rise in Suicides by Young Children Leaves Families Searching for Answers, by Andrea Petersen, The Wall Street Journal, Jun 5 2022.

“The number of children dying by suicide has risen dramatically in recent years. Parents often don’t know that their children are having suicidal thoughts, new research shows. Among females ages 10 to 14, the rate of suicide more than tripled between 2007 and 2020, from 0.5 per 100,000 to 2 per 100,000 according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Among males the same age, the rate jumped from 1.2 per 100,000 to 3.6 per 100,000 over the same period.  Although the numbers are tiny compared with the number of older adolescents and adults who die by suicide, it is now the second leading cause of death among children in this age group. Suicidal thoughts and attempts are much more common in younger children than previously thought, new research is finding. Among 9- and 10-year-olds and their parents who were asked if the children had suicidal thoughts or made suicide attempts during their lifetime, 14.3% reported suicidal thoughts and 1.26% reported suicide attempts, according to an analysis of data from a large study of adolescent health and brain development that is following nearly 12,000 youngsters across the U.S. The paper was published in 2021 in the journal Translational Psychiatry. New research is uncovering risk factors in younger children like family conflict and early exposure to alcohol. Depression is most commonly associated with suicidal thoughts in older teens and adults, but in younger children scientists are finding that ADHD and behavior problems are also closely linked to suicidal thoughts and behaviors. ”

How A Hospital And A School District Teamed Up To Help Kids In Emotional Crisis, by Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR, Jun 11 2021.

“The concerning rise in mental health issues noticed by school administrators mirrors national trends. Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. children meet criteria for a mental health disorder, and the rate of suicide attempts among youth has risen over the past decade, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Around the country, most kids who have mental health issues don't get treatment. There's a shortage of providers who work with children and it can take months to get an appointment.  "The wait times on an average to see a mental health specialist on an emergency basis is somewhere between two to three months, and for regular basis is up to 12 months, which is an unacceptable wait time," says Dr. Ujjwal Ramtekkar, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Nationwide Children's Hospital. ”

Disruptive Behavior: Why It’s Often Misdiagnosed, by Child Mind Institute, Feb 9 2021.

“Most children have occasional temper tantrums or emotional outbursts, but when kids repeatedly lash out, are defiant, or can’t control their tempers, it can impair their functioning in school and cause serious family turmoil.  The first challenge in helping a child manage his behavior better is to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. In the same way that a headache or a fever can be caused by many things, frequent outbursts — which clinicians call “emotional dysregulation”— can reflect a number of different underlying issues.  It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that a child who’s pushing or hitting or throwing tantrums is angry, defiant or hostile. But in many cases disruptive, even explosive behavior stems from anxiety or frustration that may not be apparent to parents or teachers. ”

Rates of ADHD diagnosis among US adults are on the rise, study suggests, by Jacqueline Howard, CNN, Nov 1 2019.

“The prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, has continued to climb significantly among adults in the United States within the past decade, a new study suggests.  The study, published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open on Friday, found increasing rates of adults diagnosed with ADHD within the Kaiser Permanente Northern California health system between 2007 and 2016, regardless of whether they were first diagnosed as a child or adult. ”

6 Tips for Better Managing Time for Adults with ADHD, by Melissa Orlov, Psychology Today, Jul 8 2019.

How Teens and Young Adults with ADHD Can Thrive, by Margarita Tartakovsky, PsychCentral, Jul 6 2019.

The disabilities we don't see, by Lisa Meeks, PhD, Association of American Medical Colleges, Jul 2 2019.

Guanfacine vs. Adderall: What is the difference?, by Jennifer Huizen, Medical News Today, Jun 14 2019.

College Students (And Their Parents) Face A Campus Mental Health 'Epidemic', by Terry Gross, NPR, May 28 2019.