Could You Have Adult ADHD?

We all know about the problems of attention deficit disorder that afflicts some children. More properly, it’s called attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Drug treatment is successful, but there are problems of over diagnosing, over-prescribing, drug diversion, and drug abuse.

But did you know that adults can suffer from ADHD, too? It’s estimated that over 4% of adults have ADHD, and in somewhere between 50% and 80% there is persistence of ADHD from childhood into adulthood. Unlike childhood ADHD, the adult version is under-diagnosed, although the results of treatment are often better than in children. Hyperactivity is less pronounced, so some people refer to it as adult ADD.

Adults with ADHD are chiefly affected in their work. It’s been shown that, with matched educational backgrounds, a person with ADHD will earn between $4000 and $9000 less per year than a non-ADHD person due to their inefficiency and their inability to advance in the workplace. Adults with ADHD also change jobs about twice as often — not to obtain a higher position, but as a lateral move. They become bored and move to a new field simply to start over.

There’s a good screening test to help people see if they might have adult ADHD. There are only six questions to answer; even if you aren’t taking the test, they provide an excellent glimpse of what the symptoms of the condition must be like.