ADD/ADHD: Over and Under-diagnosed (JT#3)

After conducting my interview with psychiatrist Jonathan Bloomberg today, I was left pretty pleased with the entire thing. I feel as though it will help my Junior Theme a lot, considering he seems to share many similar views as I. One thing that I found shocking about his statements, however, was that he believes ADD in the United States to be vastly under-diagnosed. In a nation, and even a school where I can clearly see the over-diagnosis to be extreme, it's hard to believe that there's many people out there who don't have access to the same ADD medications that students at New Trier do.

From a personal standpoint, I know that about 50% of all of my friends are currently on medication for ADD, whether it be Adderall, Ritalin or Concerta. For a long time, I thought that this number was ridiculous; that they were just exaggerating attention-deficit and hyperactivity symptoms to receive extended time on tests and sympathy from teachers. While many people think this way, and this may seem to be an alarmingly large number of diagnosed and medicated children (it certainly was for me), it's actually quite the norm in the United States. While it's estimated that only 3-5% of the population have ADD or ADHD, the growing amount of diagnoses in recent years is remarkable (Koch). As of 2006, 4.5 million children aged 5-17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Among these diagnoses, the main prevalence seems to be among upper class, insured, white, English-speaking boys (CDC). From these statistics, the most logical explanation for the ADD diagnosis issue seems to be a misunderstanding of the disease itself.

Contrary to the belief of many, ADD is a serious disorder that does, in fact, exist. The problem lies not within the creation of an imaginary disease to get attention or special help; rather, it lies within the exploitation of the all-encompassing symptoms of ADD/ADHD. The three main symptoms of ADD/ADHD are hyperactivity, impulsiveness and inattention (Breggin). Obviously, these three behaviors can be applied, to whatever degree, to any child with half a creative mind. Like many other psycho-pathologies, ADD doesn't have symptoms that can be measured quantitatively. And this is what makes it so easy to over-diagnose. Parents in high-income brackets who want their children to excel in accelerated high schools (NEWTRIER WHAT!?) are more likely to look for easy outs like mental illness than parents who don't have the money or resources to be insured or to seek out professional help.

And this brings me back to the point that Dr. Bloomberg brought up in our interview. ADD and ADHD certainly are real disorders, and they have a huge impact on a child's life. However, the lack of child psychiatrists in the United States (there are now only about 6,000, including Dr. Bloomberg), combined with ADD's stigma of being a nonexistent disorder, combined with the accessibility of drugs, makes it vastly misunderstood and misdiagnosed.