There has been an explosion in the number of adults being diagnosed with ADHD – and just as many left wondering if they should be one of them.
Celebrities such as Annie Lennox, who was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at the age of 70, have helped to reshape the conception that the condition only affects children.
Awareness of how the condition affects adults – and particularly women – has coincided with demand for diagnoses and treatment reaching a record high.
Charity ADHD UK estimate that 2.5 million people are living with the develomental condition in England, with the number rising to 2.9 million people if you include the entire UK.
Last week it was revealed that 700,000 people in England are waiting for an ADHD assessment, with waiting times of up to ten years on the NHS.
However, under the Right to Choose scheme, which lets patients choose a non-NHS health provider to provide NHS-funded treatment, half of NHS ADHD assessments are now carried out in the private sector.
Alternatively, patients can pay around £1,000 for the assessments themselves and then ask their NHS GP to take over the prescribing.
ADHD UK estimate that 2.5 million people are living with ADHD in England, with the number rising to 2.9 million people if you include the entire UK
But what are the signs that you might need to join the queue for an ADHD assessment?
According to the NHS, ADHD in adults can present as trouble with things like concentrating and sitting still.
The have identified seven symptoms of the condition, which are divided into signs of being ‘inattentive’ and signs of being ‘hyperactive and impulsive’.
‘Inattentive’ symptoms include being easily distracted or forgetful, finding it hard to organise your time, finding it hard to follow instructions or finish tasks and finding it hard to follow instructions or finish tasks.
‘Impulsive’ symptoms include having a lot of energy or feeling restless, being very talkative or interrupting conversations and making quick decisions without thinking about what might happen as a result.
Most people with ADHD will have symptoms of both the inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive type. Some only show signs of one type.
While these symptoms usually start before the age of 12, ADHD symptoms are often missed in childhood, and an increasing number of adults are seeking a diagnosis and treatment.
A recent UCL study lead by Dr Doug McKechnie analysed why more adults are being diagnosed.
‘We do not know exactly why this is happening, but it may be that ADHD has become better recognised and diagnosed,’ he concluded.
Over the past decade, there has been a huge increase in the number of adult women who have been told they fit the criteria for the neurodivergent condition.
Much of what scientists know about ADHD comes from studies that have focused on men, but the disorder looks a lot different in women, meaning that many have been dismissed for their symptoms, which might include shyness, sensitivity to noise and emotional volatility.
Some studies have linked later diagnosis of the condition to premature death; some experts claim that as many as 80 per cent of adults with ADHD develop a secondary mental health condition, such as depression and anxiety.
Speaking to The Times, GP Gavin Francis claimed that ADHD has the potential of becoming ‘a label conferring the sense of lifelong disability’.
In Edinburgh, Francis reports, psychiatric referrals for assessment of adult ADHD recently went, within five years, from taking up three per cent of the total referrals to 25 per cent.
Francis, author of The Unfragile Mind, said that the thresholds for ADHD diagnosis have ‘dropped’ in the past two to three decades, while prescriptions for ADHD medication have increased.
He added, ‘I’ve had numerous patients who have not found the drugs very helpful,
‘They’ve helped a little bit in the beginning, but then they’ve come off them because ultimately they felt a bit strange on them.’
The health professional noted that not everyone with conditions such as ADHD is unable to work, adding that ‘there’s a complexity to the messy realities of people’s lives’.
He noted that the UK’s benefits system is ‘very ill-equipped — and under-resourced’, to deal with these realities.
NHS data shows around 820,000 people in England have had a diagnosis of ADHD, and of these, 297,000 are taking medication to treat it, up from 81,000 ten years ago.
