

Sibley says that’s one of her primary concerns about potential misdiagnosis of ADHD: the possibility that people have other conditions that are being missed. They can also worsen anxiety-which is important, since anxiety can either accompany or be mistaken for ADHD, Gold notes. Stimulants can be abused and come with potential side effects, including insomnia, loss of appetite, nausea, and headaches. Many mental-health professionals aren’t comfortable diagnosing those issues, in some cases because they’re nervous about prescribing stimulant medications, Zylowska says. Adults with ADHD may slip through the cracks for similar reasons, Zylowska says: hyperactivity tends to improve as someone gets older, but inattention and other symptoms can persist. While boys typically experience hyperactive symptoms of ADHD, including impulse control and excess energy, girls are more likely to experience internal symptoms, like trouble focusing or listening, that are harder to notice. It’s just that girls and adults have historically been missed. “If you ask a person to close their eyes and imagine someone with ADHD, I’d wager nine out of 10 times they’re going to think of a little boy running around a classroom, making lots of noise, and getting into trouble,” says Julia Schechter, co-director of the Duke Center for Girls and Women with ADHD.īut the reality, Schechter says, is that people of all ages and genders experience ADHD. Not all clinicians are properly trained to do that assessment-which goes back to a long misunderstanding of what ADHD is and who it affects. To diagnose ADHD, clinicians usually rely on the patient’s description of their symptoms at various phases of their life, reports from people they know, or, more rarely, neuropsychiatric testing. “That’s okay if you take that information to a doctor who feels comfortable sussing it out,” she says, but not all clinicians are well-versed in ADHD detection. Louis who has studied ADHD diagnosis trends.

Jessica Gold, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. But since almost everyone has experienced focus, memory, or attention issues at some point, it’s easy to jump to a self-diagnosis that may not be correct, says Dr. Some startups offering remote ADHD care advertised their services on platforms like TikTok, adding to a chorus of social media posts (many misleading, according to one 2022 study) about common signs of ADHD, such as forgetfulness and difficulty focusing.įor some people, those videos led to appropriate diagnoses. (Many teletherapy services have stopped prescribing stimulants like Adderall.)ĪDHD content on social media only added to concerns about over-diagnosis. Plenty of people benefitted from that increased access to care, but it also raised concerns about over-treatment and over-diagnosis-particularly when teletherapy startups began writing so many stimulant prescriptions that federal investigators raised alarm bells. Thanks to relaxed regulations on both telehealth and remote prescription of controlled substances, it became easier than ever to get diagnosed with and treated for ADHD online. The pandemic also opened up new avenues for getting an ADHD diagnosis. Many people were forced out of their normal work and school routines, stressed, sleeping less, and scrolling social media more- a perfect storm of distraction that may have exacerbated symptoms in some people.
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For some people, the pandemic may have been a tipping point from manageable concentration issues to those that required professional help, says Margaret Sibley, an associate professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and an ADHD specialist.
