Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong was interviewed recently about the best-selling band’s new and upcoming album. In discussing the timing and arrangements, he reported to AP, “That is a painstaking process, let me tell you! For a bunch of guys that are ADHD [Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder], it’s hard to have patience!”
So, members of Green Day have ADHD.
Cool! This help many more teens accept the diagnosis, as Green Day is a very popular band.
Many parents struggle with handling their child or teen’s ADD/ADHD symptoms during the holiday. Although this is ideally a time to relax and enjoy family, the pressures of ‘getting ready’ can be overwhelming.
This is also the season of giving.
So, my holiday gift to you is a 60 minute recording of how to handle ADHD during the holidays.
This recording is free to you, and you can access it until the first week of January here: ADHD and the Holidays.
On this audio, you’ll discover the answers on how to:
When people are considering taking medication for ADD or ADHD, they often feel that it is really optional, and there are no major consequences if they don’t actually take the medicine.
Research is clearly showing that when people with ADD/ADHD get behind the wheel - there is a serious increase in risk for tickets, accidents and injuries.
I recently had the opportunity to interview a leading researcher in ADHD and driving - named: Dr. Daniel Cox. He is on a mission to help people to know the dangers - as his research clearly shows that when drivers are taking their medication, the risks of accidents and death are much lower.
This is a very important interview for saftey being the wheel. I suggest that you watch it, and forward it to friends and family who may benefit from this information.
Can’t seem to quit smoking?
It really could be your ADD/ADHD
Maybe you’ve been using your ADD/ADHD symptoms as an excuse for your inability to kick the habit – the tobacco habit.
If you have been, you may be surprised (or heartened) to know that it’s just not an “excuse” but seems to be a fact: having ADD/ADHD does make it more difficult to quit smoking. (Notice, I said “more difficult” not “impossible”!)
But here’s the catch – your ability to quit smoking may be related to the specific symptoms you exhibit.
A recent study, conducted by Dr. Lirio Covey, a professor of clinical psychology (in psychiatry) at Columbia University medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and colleagues, points in this direction at least.
Individuals displaying hyperactivity and impulsivity symptoms were less likely to stop smoking than those with the symptoms of inattention alone. These are the results...
Just-Released Study Finds No Genetic DamageFrom Taking ADD/ADHD medication
Contrary to some earlier findings, the results of a new study reveal that the most common medications for ADD/ADHD – Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta – do not cause genetic damage in children.
The research, conducted by the National Institutes of Health and Duke University, studied 63 children in all, ages ranging from six to 12 years of age. Each met the full criteria diagnosis for ADHD. None, however, had previously been treated with prescription stimulant medications.
The students were divided into two groups. Some of the students were treated with Ritalin LA or Concerta; the other group took Adderall. Each child’s blood was sampled prior to the administering of the medication and again after three months of use. Forty-seven students actually completed the study.
This is a fantastic video of how powerful one can be when validating others. This video is extremely well done, and has a very powerful message.
Often with ADD/ADHD, people do not feel recognized and acknowledged. More often than not, they feel that people do NOT see who they are. They so often hear about how they’re not reaching their potential, ‘just try harder’, and other comments which impact on their self esteem.
Enjoy this video, and think about how you could use the principle of recognizing and validating others to help the lives of people with ADD/ADHD, and the lives of everyone else too.
And if you are an adult with ADD/ADHD, and you don’t have someone around that you can convince to start ‘validating’ you, then just try validating others for 2 days as an experiment… See what’ll happen.
New imaging technology shows brains of those with ADD/ADHD may differ
Could it be that in addition to the differences in how the brains of those with ADD/ADHD act, there may be also a fundamental difference in the shape of this organ as well?
This research, just published in the online edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry, shows actual differences in the shapes of boys’ brains with ADD/ADHD. Why is this even important? This knowledge may eventually help to locate the specific neural circuits that are involved in this disorder.
Staff from the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore and the Johns Hopkins Center for Imaging Science used a new tool in this project. It’s called a large deformation diffeomorphic mapping (LDDMM) tool, providing them with a very accurate shape of the basal ganglia. Previous research only looked at the volume of the basal ganglia, but was not able to actually determine shape differences. This area of the brain...
From the years 2002 to 2005, use of prescription medications for ADD/ADHD rose by 40 percent according to a recent study.
A recent study looked at the growing use of prescription drugs among children with a variety of chronic illnesses, including diabetes and hypertension, not just ADD/ADHD.
The study was conducted by researchers of Express Scripts, Inc., the Pediatric Research Institute at St. Louis University and the Kansas Health Institute in Topeka, Kansas. Express Scripts is a firm which manages pharmacy benefits.
Of the increase in ADD/ADHD related prescription drugs, the researchers report, use in girls rose nearly twice as fast as it did in boys, totaling a 63 percent increase from 2002 to 2005. In contrast the increase in boys rose only 33 percent.
Researchers also reported that more young adults between the ages of 15 and 19 years of age had been prescribed a medication for ADD/ADHD. This is normally, the report said, an age where many children...
It’s a well-established fact in the medical community that treating ADD/ADHD in teens is more difficult when they’re also being treated for substance abuse.
That’s why the results of a recent study are encouraging. It shows that the prescription drug, Strattera®, is particularly effective in helping those teens who not only have ADD/ADHD but who are also being treated for some type of drug problem.
About 40 percent of the teenagers who are being treated for drug abuse also have some degree of ADD/ADHD, according to Dr. Christian Thurstone, of the Denver Health and Hospital Authority, University of Colorado.
Strattera® is most effective, in fact when it’s used in combination with cognitive behavior therapy, he says. These findings were recently presented to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) 55th annual meeting held Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 in Chicago.
Clinicians, however, seem reluctant to actually provide these individuals...
Divorce is More Likely For Parents of ADD/ADHD Children:
If any parent of an child with ADD/ADHD needed any more proof that this disorder strains the entire family, you need only read the latest study on the subject in the October issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Thought to be the first study of its kind, the research revealed that parents who have a child with ADD/ADHD are twice as likely to be divorced by the time the child is 8 years old compared to those marriages in which the child doesn’t have the disorder.
The study discovered that those 23 percent of parents whose children had ADD/ADHD were likely to divorce compared to only 13 percent of couples whose children didn’t have the disorder.
Not only that, but the investigators also discovered that among the divorced couples, those whose families included children with ADD/ADHD experienced divorce sooner than those families who didn’t.
