The Importance of ADHD Research for Adults and Children

 

The article “The Marketing of Stimulants for Children With A.D.H.D.” in the New York Times, by Perri Klass, M.D., discusses the ins and outs of diagnosing and treating ADHD along with the implications of this journey on children, their parents, doctors and society at large. The article highlights the growing number of those being diagnosed and the significance of what age patients are being diagnosed. One major treatment for ADHD includes the prescription of a stimulant. Klass writes “Although medication should be neither the first nor the only treatment used, some children find that the stimulants significantly change their educational experiences, and their lives, for the better”. There is a large debate on whether ADHD medication should be prescribed to children or not, one of the reasons for the ladder includes possible addiction to a substance later in life, which researchers have seen a rise of Adderall misuse/abuse. Klass’ article also encourages one to factor in how the pharmaceutical companies push medications through doctors and the difficulty for parents to know if their child is being prescribed medication for the right reasons. For both children and adult patients getting this diagnosis and knowing what the best treatment can be difficult.

 Continuation of research on ADHD is important because it will be able to give insight on understanding how one is affected by it and the best ways to treat it. In the study “Top-down attention modulates auditory-evoked neural responses in neurotypical, but not ADHD, young adults” Kwasa et al investigates the deficits held by people with ADHD in comparison to those without it. The study focused on 55 young adults, 20 being neurotypical and 25 with ADHD. Kwasa et al assessed the ability of subjects to maintain attentional focus using a sound test, the researchers used an EEG to measure event related potentials (ERPS) specifically looking at N1 and P3 responses. The results of this test showed “attentional modulation was weaker in ADHD listeners, even though their behavioral performance was no lower” (Kwasa et al). The results of the neural responses recorded show that it is more difficult for those with ADHD to keep their attention on a single subject. This applies to and gives evidence for the daily struggle that many people go through having ADHD, for many staying focused at school or work is much more difficult for someone without ADHD.

 For many adults and children their success at school/work is highly affected by their ADHD and therefore they seek treatment. For many this treatment will be the prescription of a stimulant. As mentioned before there is the potential for abuse of such stimulants and that is one reason, I think Kwasa’s study is important. With the found information doctors can have a better sense of how to diagnose future patients and make sure they are prescribing a drug safely. Kwasa et al write, “our results support the idea that behavioral assessments are less sensitive than neural measures of ADHD”. This shows that maybe there needs to be a change in how doctors diagnose. Continuing research similar to this study will improve the treatment for those with ADHD as well as potentially reduce the amount of people that get addicted to the stimulants by wrongly being prescribed. New research based evidence would hopefully also aid in stopping the pharmaceutical companies pushing their prescriptions for wrongful reasons, which increases patient safety and lowering patient’s cost for treatment.

Resources

Klass, Perri, MD. “The Marketing of Stimulants for Children With A.D.H.D.” The New York Times, 10 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/well/family/the-marketing-of-stimulants-for-children-with-adhd.html?searchResultPosition=1.

Kwasa, Jasmine, et al. “Top-down Attention Modulates Neural Responses in Neurotypical, but Not ADHD, Young Adults.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 150, no. 4, 2021, p. A64. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0007633.