13 Aug ADD? A Very Real Issue for Adults

Many experts describe ADD as having a mind like a pinball machine, with thoughts bouncing from one place to another. Adults with ADD describe their condition as follows:

• “I get fidgety and want to get up and move.”
• “I couldn’t keep the house clean, pay bills, get things done on time…I started but never finished”
• “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do work, I just felt I wasn’t capable of doing it…I was all over the place”
• “My relationships with people suffered because of my tendency to talk first and think later”
• “I am disorganized  because of the way my brain works”
• “I have trouble planning in what order to do a series of tasks or activities”

ADD affects many adults, and it is sometimes hard to pin down as a diagnosis due to its wide variety of symptoms. It is frustrating for the individual because it can hinder performance and cause a negative impact on home, work, and social life. Individuals with ADD typically have trouble paying attention and prioritizing tasks.They also experience frequent job changes, suboptimal work performance, and unemployment. No matter the situation, adults diagnosed with ADD usually face an inability to plan and initiate tasks. In addition, they tend to feel restless and face difficulty due to ease of distraction.

It has only been since the 1980s that clinicians realized that ADD could carry on into adulthood. The number of individuals diagnosed increased more than threefold from 2002 to 2007 with the largest growth in the adult population. In the United States, 10 million people experience ADD symptoms and more than 7.5 million are not even aware of it. While ADD begins to appear in childhood, many adults with the disorder were never diagnosed. Only now, as the stress and demands of adulthood overwhelm their coping mechanisms, do they start to recognize the symptoms that have always been present.

Do you experience similar symptoms as described above? Do you have difficulty with attention and poor performance? Are you unfocused at work, wandering from task to task, and running behind? You have the power to make a change. Call the Institute for Advanced Medical Research at 770-817-9200 to learn more about your options for treating and addressing ADD symptoms.