When ADHD Isn't What It Seems

[Phentex]

From The Atlantic


The number of kids who are diagnosed with ADHD these days is huge—and growing. Reported cases of the disorder have increased by 42 percent since 2003. But a new study suggests that some of these children might actually be suffering from a different condition that often goes undetected.

Most of the referrals that pediatrician Ira Chasnoff gets at his clinic at the Children’s Research Triangle in Chicago are for behavioral issues. He and his team analyzed a sample of 156 foster children who had been referred to his clinic and found that 81 percent of them had fetal alcohol spectrum disorders that had not previously been detected by a physician. The most common reason they had been referred to Chasnoff was ADHD.

FASD, as this group of conditions are known, is related to the better-known fetal alcohol syndrome and can cause similar behavioral and learning problems. Unlike children affected by fetal alcohol syndrome, which is the most severe condition on the spectrum, those with other types of FASD may not have facial anomalies. Thus, the issue may go unnoticed by physicians for years.

See rest of story at link

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/when-adhd-isnt-what-it-seems/384537/

[meow2u3]

1. Fetal alcohol syndrome isn't the only condition with ADHD-like symptoms

Certain types of brain damage, such as those arising from hypoxia before birth, cause the sufferer to show ADHD-like symptoms. Head trauma can also mimic ADHD in some cases.
All those jokes and derisive comments about someone having been dropped on their head when they were babies are actually no laughing matter. Try living every day being unable to focus for more than a few minutes at a time!

http://psychcentral.com/lib/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-fact-sheet/0001602

Other conditions that mimic ADHD can be found here.

[obliquediversions]

3. Early onset dementias are also an overlooked cause of symptoms

Last edited Tue Nov 1, 2016, 05:20 PM - Edit history (2)

May wish to to add Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia, which responds, at least in the early stages, to the drugs normally prescribed for ADHD, to the list

https://www.theaftd.org/understandingftd/disorders/bv-ftd

Unfortunately some early ADHD studies included children from areas of North Carolina which were settled by Huguenots who carried the disease. Its highly hereditary

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091102171207.htm

Quote (emphasis mine):
"The study also found that *behavioral problems* associated with frontotemporal dementia were the most likely to be hereditary, while language problems were the least likely to be hereditary"