{"id":29530,"date":"2022-05-12T01:04:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T01:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=29530"},"modified":"2022-05-17T23:19:54","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T23:19:54","slug":"adult-adhd-what-it-is-how-to-treat-it-and-why-medicine-ignored-it-for-so-long-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/adult-adhd-what-it-is-how-to-treat-it-and-why-medicine-ignored-it-for-so-long-podcast\/","title":{"rendered":"Adult ADHD: What it is, how to treat it and why medicine ignored it for so long \u2013 podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Daniel Merino<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents and doctors have known about childhood ADHD \u2013 attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder \u2013 for decades, but it is only recently that the medical field has started to recognize, diagnose and seriously study ADHD in adults. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly<\/a> podcast, we explore what adult ADHD looks like, how it is diagnosed today and the many new treatments available to help those with the disorder live better lives. https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/60087127b9687759d637bade\/6273a34647154200129401a2<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/cdn.theconversation.com\/infographics\/561\/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f\/site\/index.html\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The name attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder is a pretty good description of this common condition, but it can manifest in a few different ways. Some people only struggle with paying attention, some people can focus on tasks but are constantly fidgeting or dealing with excessive energy and some people exhibit both attention problems and hyperactivity. But for those who study ADHD, it is how these symptoms affect people\u2019s daily lives that is most important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamara May is a senior research fellow at Monash University in Australia. She says that ADHD \u201caffects the way our executive functions work. These are things like how we pay attention, how we sort of moderate ourselves, how we plan and organize, time management and how we switch attention.\u201d As May explains, many people with ADHD are forgetful and bad at time management and these issues can affect many aspects of daily life. \u201cIt means that you underachieved academically or you had to drop out. It means that your interpersonal relationships are impacted, you can\u2019t maintain friendships or you\u2019re heavily relying on a partner to do all your organizing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, as awareness of adult ADHD has grown, so has the body of knowledge on how to treat it, both with drugs and also with behavioral therapy. Laura Knouse is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Richmond in the U.S. and studies how therapy can help adults with ADHD. She says that, according to most recent research, the best nonmedication treatments \u201cfall under this umbrella of something we call cognitive behavioral therapy. I like to simplify that and just say a skills-based treatment, a treatment that\u2019s going to help you figure out how to structure your environment and how to structure your time and develop the strategies that you\u2019re going to need to make your goals real, even in the presence of having ADHD in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the full episode of the podcast, we talk in depth with Knouse about what these therapies are, how they work in concert with medication and what\u2019s next for treatments. Then we end the episode with Tamara May, digging into how perceptions of adult ADHD \u2013 both within medicine and culture more generally \u2013 have changed in recent years, and what it means for those who have it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019d love to hear what you think about The Conversation Weekly podcast and are running a listener survey<\/a> about the show, which should take about five minutes to complete. Thank you!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can find us on Twitter @TC_Audio<\/a>, on Instagram at theconversationdotcom<\/a> or via email<\/a>. You can also sign up to The Conversation\u2019s free daily email here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed<\/a>, or find out how else to listen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Merino<\/a>, Assistant Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Merino, The Conversation Parents and doctors have known about childhood ADHD \u2013 attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder \u2013 for decades, but it is only recently that the medical field has started to recognize, diagnose and seriously study ADHD in adults. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we explore what adult ADHD looks like, how it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":29532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42,3410],"tags":[330,9527,9528,9748],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29530"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29569,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29530\/revisions\/29569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}