ADHD Awareness Month is celebrated every year in October to raise awareness about attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, a common mental health condition often misunderstood by many.
The theme for this year’s celebrations, “Moving Forward With ADHD,” is designed to provide reliable information regarding ADHD and available treatment options.
ADHD is often misunderstood as it has symptoms similar to other disorders like anxiety and depression. Sometimes people even fail to recognize it as a real disorder and dismiss the symptoms as something that stems from a lack of willpower or an excuse for laziness.
Types of ADHD
1. Inattentive and distractible – A type of ADHD in which people show symptoms of distraction, poor concentration and organizational skills.
2. Impulsive/hyperactive – The least common type of ADHD in which people show signs of hyperactivity, such as constant fidgeting and impulsive behavior.
3. Combined type – It is the most common type of ADHD where people have symptoms of both inattentive and hyperactive disorders.
To raise awareness about the chronic neurodevelopment disorder, an expert dispels some common myths and also shares facts about the condition.
Myth 1: Adults do not have ADHD
Fact: ADHD is typically first diagnosed in childhood, however, symptoms continue into adulthood in more than three-quarters of cases.
The disorder affects about one in 10 school-aged children and the prevalence rates of ADHD among adults vary based on the source examined.
“Even with varying prevalence rates, the research shows adults do have ADHD. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the overall current prevalence of adult ADHD in the United States is 4.4%, with prevalence being higher for males (5.4%) than females (3.2%). The lifetime prevalence for adult ADHD according to the NIMH is 8.1%. A 2021 study by Song and colleagues found that more than 366 million adults worldwide have ADHD, as of 2020 and the World Mental Health Surveys (2017) found the…
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