PANDAS syndrome is a group of mental health conditions that suddenly appear in a child after a strep infection. Learn about the causes, symptoms, and treatment.
Source: PANDAS syndrome: Symptoms, causes, treatment, and more : Medical News Today
Tag: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Sensory overload: Symptoms, causes, and treatment : Medical News Today
Sensory overload is the over stimulation of one or more of the body’s senses. It often affects people with certain conditions, such as autism or ADHD. Learn more.
Source: Sensory overload: Symptoms, causes, and treatment : Medical News Today
How Is ADHD Treated? | Everyday Health
There’s no cure for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but proper treatment can help control many symptoms of the disorder.
Severe childhood deprivation has longstanding impacts on brain size in adulthood — ScienceDaily
Researchers have shown that the brains of young adult Romanian adoptees who were institutionalized as children are around 8.6% smaller than the brains of English adoptees who have not suffered this form of deprivation.
Source: Severe childhood deprivation has longstanding impacts on brain size in adulthood — ScienceDaily
Omega-3 supplements improved attention in some youths with ADHD : Medical News Today
New research finds that omega-3 fish oil supplements can improve attention in youths with ADHD who have low — but not high — blood levels of omega-3.
Source: Omega-3 supplements improved attention in some youths with ADHD : Medical News Today
Society pays heavy price for failure to diagnose and treat conduct disorder — ScienceDaily
Conduct disorder is a common and highly impairing psychiatric disorder that usually emerges in childhood or adolescence and is characterized by severe antisocial and aggressive behavior, including physical aggression, theft, property damage and violation of others’ rights. Much greater awareness, improved diagnosis and enhanced treatment are all required in order to reduce the burden on society of the severe behavioral condition, conduct disorder, according to a new study co-authored by an LSU psychology professor.
“There needs to be a concerted effort to improve the diagnosis and treatment of children and teenagers with conduct disorder by investing in training in evidence-based treatments for this condition and ensuring that families can access child and adolescent mental health services. At LSU, we provide diagnostic services to the community for children and adolescents with serious behavior problems ages 6 to 17 through our Psychological Services Center, run by the LSU Department of Psychology,” said co-author Paul Frick, LSU Department of Psychology professor.
The study reviewed evidence from research conducted around the world and estimated the prevalence of conduct disorder to be around 3 percent in school-aged children and it is a leading cause of referral to child and adolescent mental health services. Yet paradoxically it is one of the least widely recognized or studied psychiatric disorders, and funding for research into it lags far behind many other childhood disorders.
What the evidence shows is that conduct disorder is associated with an exceptionally high individual, societal and economic burden. The health and personal burden of it is seven times greater than that of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, a much more widely known disorder. Whilst it is likely that children diagnosed with ADHD may also show signs of conduct disorder, very few will be diagnosed or receive treatment for it. Conduct disorder is also associated with a greater health burden than autism.
“Despite the fact that it is associated with a very high personal, familial, and societal burden, conduct disorder is under-recognized and frequently goes undiagnosed and untreated. Unfortunately, the longer this goes on, the more difficult it is to treat. It truly exemplifies the old saying that ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’ Also, many treatments that are being used in the community have not proven effective,” Frick said.
This failure to tackle and treat conduct disorder in children and adolescents led the researchers to write the new Nature Reviewspaper which calls for a greater awareness of the condition, and more funding to improve our understanding and ability to treat the disorder. The paper — a comprehensive overview of all aspects of conduct disorder, its diagnosis, clinical management and long-term impact — highlights the negative consequences and adult outcomes that can occur if it is not correctly diagnosed or treated.
Source: Society pays heavy price for failure to diagnose and treat conduct disorder — ScienceDaily
Top 3 conditions that doctors underdiagnose in women : Medical News Today
International Women’s Day prompts us to celebrate women and womanhood. However, recent research suggests that women may face more than their fair share of challenges, including in receiving appropriate medical care. What are some of these challenges, and why do they occur?
Source: Top 3 conditions that doctors underdiagnose in women : Medical News Today
Children with autism, co-occurring ADHD symptoms lag in key measures of independence — ScienceDaily
A pair of new studies has provided new insight into the challenges faced by children on the autism spectrum who exhibit symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). According to the findings from researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), these children have difficulty with adaptive behavior, a key measure of independence.
Additionally, researchers pinpointed weaker functional connections in two large brain networks in children on the autism spectrum who have co-occurring ADHD symptoms.
The first study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, analyzed adaptive behavior, a key measure of how a person is able to function independently at home, school and in the community. Communication skills, self-care skills and social skills are examples of adaptive behavior. Many of these skill areas are often impaired in children on the autism spectrum, and the gap between autistic children and typically developing children widens during adolescence. Understanding factors that contribute to adaptive behavior impairments may reveal critical points for intervention.
Prior studies have shown that autistic children and co-occurring ADHD diagnoses have greater adaptive behavior impairments compared with those without co-occurring ADHD. However, there are many children on the autism spectrum who do not have an ADHD diagnosis, but have some ADHD behaviors. Therefore, researchers suspected the possibility that the presence of these behaviors could affect how a child functions both at home and at school.
“Using a case-control study, we wanted to know if ADHD symptoms associated with adaptive behavior regardless of whether children on the autism spectrum had an ADHD diagnosis or not,” said Benjamin Yerys, PhD, a psychologist in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at CHOP, a child psychologist in the Center for Autism Research at CHOP and lead author of the study. “This study is also the first to investigate whether this relationship between ADHD symptoms and adaptive behaviors is also present in the school setting. Showing this relationship in more than one setting is critical for demonstrating the far-reaching effects of ADHD symptoms on a child’s functioning.”
Source: Children with autism, co-occurring ADHD symptoms lag in key measures of independence — ScienceDaily
Bipolar vs. ADHD: Symptoms and differences : Medical News Today
ADHD is more common than bipolar disorder. As the two conditions can coexist, misdiagnosis can occur.
In this article, we compare bipolar disorder and ADHD. Read on to learn about the symptoms of each and how they can overlap. We also explain treatments and when to see a doctor.
Bipolar vs. ADHD
Source: Bipolar vs. ADHD: Symptoms and differences : Medical News Today
Help Your Child with ADHD Gain a Strong Sense of Self : Additude
It is one of life’s great ironies that our sense of self comes mostly from others.
As children, we learn who we are and how we are valued by the feedback we receive from other people. If we do something and others respond with warmth, admiration, and pleasure, we think of that action as reflecting the good part of ourselves. If, on the other hand, we do something and it is met with disapproval or withdrawal of love, we have been bad and we must not do it again.
How Kids with ADHD Are Perceived and Judged
There are three basic ways in which this feedback loop goes wrong for children with attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD). The first is that kids with ADHD rarely behave the same way consistently enough to get a consistent stream of feedback. Sometimes they are empathic and other times self-absorbed. If they find something interesting, they can achieve anything but they cannot do 20 minutes of homework without a meltdown. It can be hard to develop a singular sense of self while evoking contradictory feedback.
The second way things go wrong is when children receive feedback based on neurotypical expectations. While neurodiverse children are trying to discover themselves and what the world values in them, there is a fire hose of feedback telling them they should be like other children. The world tells them that having ADHD means they have “bad brains” and belong on the short bus.
These expectations are often expressed with questions that start with “Why.” “Why” questions demand a justification for failure or falling short: “Why did you get a D when you are smart enough to get an A?” or “Why did you do something so impulsive when you’ve already made this same mistake before?” Parents and others may not say it in so many words, but “Why” questions make a statement that says, “You are not the child I wanted or expected.” Pressure to conform to neurotypical expectations leads to shame. If guilt is the painful gut feeling about what we have done, then shame is that same feeling about who we are. Shame is the only emotion that wants to stay hidden.
Source: Help Your Child with ADHD Gain a Strong Sense of Self : Additude
61chrissterry 