By Dr Sanjiv Nair, Associate Consultant, Department of Psychological Medicine, Changi General Hospital
‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’ (ADHD) is a topic that has attracted public attention of late. While raising awareness of the condition is beneficial to the community, it is crucial to note that not every wandering mind or restless body is necessarily a case of ADHD. Dr Sanjiv Nair, Associate Consultant, Department of Psychological Medicine, Changi General Hospital (CGH), sets the record straight.
What is ADHD?
ADHD is a condition that makes it hard for people to stay focused on a task, keep physically still, or think before they act. It is a developmental condition — people are born with this condition — showing in symptoms before the age of seven, and continuing to affect a person throughout their lifespan. ADHD affects all aspects of everyday life, including education, work and relationships.
“I cannot concentrate on my work, this means I have ADHD.”
FACT: ADHD is more than focusing on work. It starts from childhood and affects all aspects of a person’s life, including play and social interactions.
Everyone’s level of focus is different, and being easily distracted does not always point to ADHD. Multiple factors affect one’s ability to concentrate on work, including their working environment, interest level, intellectual ability and mood. It would be important to identify and address all the factors affecting performance to effectively address concentration problems.
“There is nothing I can do, I just have to take medication.”
FACT: One might not be able to cure ADHD with lifestyle changes, but making changes to how you live day to day is key to managing ADHD.
Establishing routines, eating healthy and staying physically active are great first steps. Using different ways to stay organised can make a big difference to effectively completing tasks, remembering lists of things and reducing accidents, which are common challenges that people with ADHD have to contend with.
Medications can be effective in treating ADHD, but the decision to prescribe medication for ADHD needs to take into consideration the risk of side effects and adverse events, individual lifestyle modifications, and usage patterns, so that medication is appropriately and safely given.
Only taking ADHD medication without addressing other factors contributing to poor concentration and organisation can lead to an unhealthy pattern of relying on more medication to improve one’s performance.
“I have ADHD because many self-screening tools have told me so.”
FACT: Online quizzes can be helpful to start assessing if you have ADHD, but they do not give you the whole picture. Neither is there one specialised test to diagnose ADHD.
ADHD is best diagnosed with a combination of patient interviews, parent interviews about the individual’s childhood symptoms, their teacher’s feedback on their classroom behaviour and learning patterns, as well as subjective and objective tests of learning, memory and attention.
There are many overlaps in symptoms between ADHD and other mental health problems, as well as other causes of inattention. Self-screening tools are generally not able to consider alternative diagnosis. For example, a self-screening tool cannot tell if your inattention is due to lack of interest, a distracting environment or ADHD.
Subscribe to our mailing list to get the updates to your email inbox...
