The Biggest ADHD Myths & How To Get A Diagnosis

Okay, Anastasia, the term ADHD is being thrown around a lot, but I'm keen to hear it from you, as the expert, what actually is ADHD?

Good starting point.

ADHD is a developmental disorder.

So what that means is that it starts early on in childhood, and it is with you throughout your life, right? ADHD is a diagnosis and a condition that affects, uh, the executive functioning in our brain.

So this very much relates to the prefrontal cortex, that front part of our brain that is responsible for higher order planning, decision-making, problem-solving, uh, emotion regulation, things like that.

It's the part of the brain, from an evolutionary perspective, that develops later.

It's what distinguishes us from things like animals that don't have as well-developed prefrontal cortex.

So it's this developmental condition that largely affects the front of the brain, and impacts the way in which people are able to focus and pay attention, and engage with certain parts of their life.

Hmm.

Now, I know in our previous season, episode one, we talked about anxiety, and I remember you talking about how there's a spectrum, right? Is that the same case for ADHD?

So ADHD symptoms can exist on a spectrum, but there are actually some well-defined subtypes of ADHD.

It used to actually be called ADD, but now-

Mm

... we refer to it as ADHD, so Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is what the full acronym actually stands for.

So there's three different subtypes that someone can be diagnosed with.

The first one is the inattentive subtype.

So this is where someone really struggles with, uh, distractibility.

It's hard for them to pay attention.

It's hard for them to focus.

They become easily distracted with other things.

You might have noticed this if you've been in a conversation with someone who has ADHD inattentive subtype, and suddenly you're talking about one thing, and then they're off onto a different kind of conversation and topic, right? Their brain gets easily distracted, or it could be that they notice something in their environment and they get distracted by that.

So this inattentive subtype is characterized by challenges with focus and paying attention.

When it comes to inattentive symptoms, is there other symptoms underneath that category?

Yeah, so this could be other things like, um, people might have a tendency to start projects and then not finish them, again-

Mm-hmm