‘ADHD’ or a bigger picture view

I don’t any longer believe ADHD is a single entity. There are lots of reasons why you might not concentrate well at school. Being anxious is a big one.  Altered processing capabilities is another.

‘But I took an online questionnaire and it says I am likely to have it?’  That’s a checklist of symptoms, and yes, that’s what ADHD is – a syndrome. That means a collection of things.

So you get this diagnosis and you’re in the ADHD bin. It’s the one with ‘ADHD’ on it with all the other people. The way out is stimulant drugs (usually). But what got you in there?  For instance, did you know low iron can give you problems concentrating? And many other things that interfere with the complex process we call ‘concentration.’  Thank about it: how do we know someone isn’t concentrating? They might fidget (upregulated nervous system sensitivity or motor function?), or talk a lot to others (hard to process so do something else?), forget the instruction (poor short-tetm memory?), or not produce work at the end (dysgraphia?), or a host of other things.

Concentration involves taking something in (sensory problems, auditory learner?), holding it in mind long enough to do the task (registration and short-term memory?), manipulating it and moving it to the output bit of your brain (processing), and producing an output (motor functions, dyslexia?).

It’s complicated.

But stimulants help me. Great!  But they make anyone concentrate more, like two double espressos.

Indeed, I see some patients (children) who rely on caffeine to get them through.  Maybe we should look for other contributory factors too? Like… how is your nervous system set up? Is there anything that might be interfering with your neural pathways? What else is going on in your life that might be making that long-standing low-grade anxiety worse?  How ‘s your sleep? Why isn’t it better?  And so on….