The Science of ADHD
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Show Me The Science with Professor Luke O'Neill. A Newstalk Original Podcast.
Hello, Luke O'Neill here and welcome to Show Me The Science, my weekly podcast. Well, this week I'm going to do the science of ADHD. This has come up a fair bit recently and lots of people are familiar with ADHD, of course. It's a very important topic and it's common, you know, very debilitating for some people, it must be said. So I thought I'd do the science behind it and the current treatments and what we know about it. And there is a bit of controversy because some people think it's being over-diagnosed. Which may be the case partly, but certainly it's a serious thing for some people. And part of the trigger for this was there was a Channel 4 documentary about this called The ADHD Myth, which has caused a bit of consternation.
And as I say, there is some evidence that it's being over-diagnosed, I guess. Now, what is it? Well, we define it, of course, as scientists, we always define these things. It stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Now, to be diagnosed with it, you must have the following features. There have to be problems with inattention, and that means you're easily distracted. Not completing tasks is a key one. Poor organisational skills. Hyperactivity, which means difficulty sitting still and being restless. And then lastly, impulsivity. Now, that one means speaking, you know, out of turn, maybe. Now, we're thinking of children here, I guess, mainly. You'll interrupt other people. You'll do things very impulsively.
Now, that defines it if you look at the psychological definition. But the truth is we all have bits of this, don't we? we all have trouble completing things sometimes. And sometimes we fidget and we're hyperactive and so on. And that's where the controversy comes in, that some of these things are normal. Remember, it's all part of our day-to-day lives. So what Reid defines it is, if these things become very disruptive for people and they can't sort of do things and they can't live a complete life because of these different features. And that's when it becomes very serious, especially in children.
What is ADHD and how is it defined by scientists?
And in fact, the early research on this always was with children in school, not paying attention and so on. But it's a bit controversial because some of these things, as I say, are quite normal behaviors anyway, and we'll come back to that notion a bit later. Now, what's happened really as well is that's triggering this latest interest in it is a lot more people seem to have it. So 10 years ago, roughly, it was rare enough, you know, and there weren't that many people with it really, you know. And then since then, the number of people being diagnosed has gone up and up. Now, it's partly because of awareness and trying to identify exactly what it is is one reason for this. But as I say, the question is, are some people being labelled with it who don't really have it?
Now, the numbers are interesting. So for people under 25, right, there was a 49% increase in diagnosis between 2005 and 2015. So in a 10-year period, 49% roughly more people got diagnosed. The numbers 10 years ago were roughly 5 per 1,000, and now it's 8 per 1,000 being diagnosed. So that's a big increase, really, you know. And then also 53, there's a good number from the HSE, 53% of all medicines for any mental health condition in young people are for ADHD. And that seems like an awful lot, doesn't it? So the totality of mental health conditions in children, people under 25 anyway, half of all medicines are being given for this thing, ADHD. The second feature about diagnosis is more adults are being diagnosed as well, because traditionally it was more children, right?
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