October is ADHD awareness month and as this condition increasingly makes an appearance at our Yorkshire based clinic, we wanted to talk about the disorder that has seen a dramatic increase of cases.

Ten years ago it was unusual to hear the acronym ADHD; there was a vague understanding of what it meant, but it wasn’t part of common parlance, let’s say.

Nowadays, with a progression in self-diagnosis, and clinical diagnosis, the current picture is that according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 4% of adults and 5% of children have this disorder.

What is ADHD? Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition which is recognised by continual patterns of inattention and hyperactivity.

As the number of ADHD cases in this country has grown, so has the number of unfounded and unhelpful myths surrounding this disorder.

Confusion surrounding ADHD

High vs Low Attention Span

Whilst attention is in the name of the disorder, there is a contingent of people who actually experience hyper focus more than attention deficit. Hyper focus is where a person can lose a significant amount of time focussing on a specific task at hand, such as studying or gaming, without realising it.

“Everyone is a little ADHD”

That is incorrect. There is an official diagnosis for those presenting a specific set of symptoms, and a person should contact their GP for an assessment if they suspect that they may well have ADHD.

Do they really have ADHD?

There can be a stigmatism which surrounds those who class themselves as ADHD.

ADHD is an actual disorder which can both hinder and derail lives if not addressed. It should be acknowledged to ensure that person cannot just survive, but thrive.

What’s going on at the clinic when it comes to ADHD?

We have seen both adults and children with ADHD in clinic; and whilst some manage their symptoms well, some need a little more support. In the more severe cases, clients feel increasingly hopeless and come to us with a long list of frustrating circumstances which make life both debilitating and infuriating. These can be everything from losing house keys and wallets on a regular basis to struggling to stay seated or making very hasty decisions which have a direct impact on their relationships – sometimes detrimental.

People who have ADHD take part in something colloquially classed as “dopamining” or “squirrelling” where a search begins for new information with a view to triggering a dopamine surge.

We do not diagnose at the clinic, but we will address symptoms individually and our work is focussed on encouraging and allowing the brain to better itself, through working alongside our suite of neurofeedback advances, which look to train the brainwaves into healthy and regulated patterns.

Put simply, the brain wants to improve and be the best it can be, it just needs a nudge in the right direction. Each brain is both complex and highly unique, and that’s why we can soon assess the responsiveness of our clients’ brain from session one.

Once we have conducted a QEEG to take away the guess work, we can identify how the brain is functioning and reacting to its stimuli. From there, we will endeavour to best create a therapy plan which might include any one of our solution-driven neuro-focussed technologies.

To read more about these visit: Our Technologies – The Brain Collective Sent from my iPhone

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