Occupational issues of adults with ADHD

Adult ADHD: A new disease?

OBJECTIVES

Until recently, it was believed that attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are outgrown by the end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood. The purpose of this review is to describe the characteristics of the disease in adults, depict comorbidities that accompany it, and expand the scope over methods of diagnosis and treatment of these ages.

METHODS

A search was conducted in the PubMed/MEDLINE database for relevant key words 'ADHD', 'attention deficit', 'hyperactivity' and 'adult'. Secondary search parameters were 'comorbid', 'prevalence', 'epidemiology', 'therapy' and 'drug therapy'. Search was limited to 'English' and 'Humans'.

RESULTS

Over the years, the persistent nature of the disorder has been clarified, elucidating prevalence rate, gender differences and subtype shifts among adult ADHD population. Nevertheless, even today, there is only limited awareness of the existence of the disorder across one's lifespan, its consequences and the appropriate treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results emphasise the growing awareness of adult psychosocial impairments due to ADHD symptoms and comorbidities, as well as the need for further collaboration among practitioners and mental health-care professionals to better identify the condition and allow for effective treatment.

Experiences of adolescents and young adults with ADHD in Hong Kong: treatment services and clinical management

BACKGROUND

Specialist services for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adulthood in Hong Kong are yet to be developed. This study aims to explore the experiences of adolescents and young adults with ADHD in accessing treatment and services, coping with ADHD-related impairment, and their expectations of future treatment in Hong Kong.

METHOD

Qualitative interviews were conducted with a semi-structured guide. Forty young adult patients aged between 16 and 23 were included in the study. The interview recordings were transcribed verbatim and anonymised. Data were analysed with a thematic approach based on key principles of Grounded Theory.

RESULTS

Four meta-themes were developed: Accessing ADHD diagnosis and treatment services; ADHD-related impairment; Experience of ADHD treatments; and Attitudes and expectations of future ADHD treatment. The role of parents and schools were highly significant in accessing services for patients diagnosed with ADHD in childhood. In general, ADHD affected every aspect of patients' lives including academic outcome, employment, family and social relationships. Medications were the principal treatment for ADHD amongst the interviewees and were reported to be generally effective. Half of the patients received non-pharmacological treatments in childhood but these effects were reported to be temporary. There was general consensus that the needs of patients with ADHD could not be met by the current service. In particular, there is a lack of specialist service for adults with ADHD, follow-up by different clinicians, and insufficient provision of non-pharmacological treatments.

CONCLUSION

The findings suggest that further development of specialist ADHD services and non-pharmacological options for young adults are essential to meet their diverse needs with a holistic approach.

Duplications in ADHD patients harbour neurobehavioural genes that are co-expressed with genes associated with hyperactivity in the mouse

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a childhood onset disorder, prevalent in 5.3% of children and 1-4% of adults. ADHD is highly heritable, with a burden of large (>500 Kb) copy number variants (CNVs) identified among individuals with ADHD. However, how such CNVs exert their effects is poorly understood. We examined the genes affected by 71 large, rare, and predominantly inherited CNVs identified among 902 individuals with ADHD. We applied both mouse-knockout functional enrichment analyses, exploiting behavioral phenotypes arising from the determined disruption of 1:1 mouse orthologues, and human brain-specific spatio-temporal expression data to uncover molecular pathways common among genes contributing to enriched phenotypes. Twenty-two percent of genes duplicated in individuals with ADHD that had mouse phenotypic information were associated with abnormal learning/memory/conditioning ("l/m/c") phenotypes. Although not observed in a second ADHD-cohort, we identified a similar enrichment among genes duplicated by eight de novo CNVs present in eight individuals with Hyperactivity and/or Short attention span ("Hyperactivity/SAS", the ontologically-derived phenotypic components of ADHD). In the brain, genes duplicated in patients with ADHD and Hyperactivity/SAS and whose orthologues' disruption yields l/m/c phenotypes in mouse ("candidate-genes"), were co-expressed with one another and with genes whose orthologues' mouse models exhibit hyperactivity. Moreover, genes associated with hyperactivity in the mouse were significantly more co-expressed with ADHD candidate-genes than with similarly identified genes from individuals with intellectual disability. Our findings support an etiology for ADHD distinct from intellectual disability, and mechanistically related to genes associated with hyperactivity phenotypes in other mammalian species.

Factors associated with a positive occupational outcome during long-term central stimulant treatment in adult ADHD

There is a lack of long-term studies of central stimulant (CS) treatment in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and studies on functional outcomes like occupational status are rare. The current study investigated occupational status in adult ADHD patients before and after long-term CS treatment (median duration of treatment 33 months) and aimed to identify variables associated with improvement in occupational status. The collection of data was based on a naturalistic, retrospective approach using the medical records of a sample of all 117 adult ADHD patients consecutively starting treatment with CS in a specific catchment area in Norway in the period 1997 to May 2005. Most patients did not improve in occupational status during long-term CS treatment. The improved group had significantly higher baseline ADHD symptoms as measured by the general adult ADD symptom checklist (83.7 vs. 76.2, p=0.024) and had a significantly shorter period from the first contact with adult psychiatry until they got the ADHD diagnosis (11.7 vs. 50.9 months, p=0.001). The results indicate that long-term CS treatment itself may have limited effect on occupational status in functionally impaired and highly comorbid patients with adult ADHD. A high baseline ADHD symptom level may be related to a superior outcome in occupational status.

The effectiveness of police custody assessments in identifying suspects with intellectual disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

BACKGROUND

Intellectual Disabilities (ID) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are recognized psychological vulnerabilities in police interviews and court proceedings in England and Wales. The aims of this study were to investigate: (a) the prevalence of ID and/or ADHD among suspects detained at a large London metropolitan police station and their relationship with conduct disorder (CD), (b) the impact of their condition on police staff resources, (c) the effectiveness of current custody assessment tools in identifying psychological vulnerabilities, and (d) the use of 'Appropriate Adults' in interviews.

METHOD

A total of 200 individuals in a police custody suite were interviewed and screened for ID, ADHD (current symptoms) and CD.

RESULTS

The screening rates for these three disorders were 6.7%, 23.5% and 76.3%, respectively. ADHD contributed significantly to increased requests being made of staff after controlling for CD and duration of time in custody. This is a novel finding. Reading and writing difficulties and mental health problems were often identified from the custody risk assessment tools, but they were not used effectively to inform on the need for the use of an Appropriate Adult. The frequency with which Appropriate Adults were provided to support detainees in police interviews (4.2%) remains almost identical to that found in a similar study conducted 20 years previously.

CONCLUSIONS

The current findings suggest that in spite of reforms recently made in custodial settings, procedures may not have had the anticipated impact of improving safeguards for vulnerable suspects. Detainees with ID and ADHD require an Appropriate Adult during police interviews and other formal custody procedures, which they commonly do not currently receive. The findings of the current study suggest this may be due, in large part, to the ineffective use of risk-assessment tools and healthcare professionals, which represent missed opportunities to identify such vulnerabilities.