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Post by vagueandrandom on Feb 12, 2016 19:09:03 GMT
A short piece which doesn't roll out the usual line that women are usually inattentive which is why they're underdiagnosed (we all know that ADHD PI is underdiagnosed regardless of gender) linkI don't want to turn this into heated debate like it did last time I posted an article. I just think that it may be of interest to some people
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Post by blaze on Feb 12, 2016 20:09:39 GMT
It could do with referencing how the different socialisation between the genders means girls grow up masking it, rather than just noting that we do.
It also doesn't esablish (or comment) on whether the lower self esetem/other mh problems are directly because of being female with adhd or whether it is because of lower/later diagnosis rates (and therefore lower treatment rates).
With regards to women struggling more because of societies expecations of us they forgot the really obvious one that women are much more likely to be the resident single parent, including the resident parent of children with disabilities (as their parents have higher break up rates statisticly speaking) so more likely trapped on a lower income unable to afford help like cleaners etc to make adhd life more managable.
They also havn't commented on hormones & the effect of adhd at variousstages in our lives.
But i guess i could be being alittle pedantic seeing as it is a short article ; )
On the *plus* side women *generally* are better at asking for help and building support networks than men, even if the complexities -which i would term depth- of female friendships take us longer to learn this.
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Post by annie on Feb 12, 2016 20:33:23 GMT
Unfortunately, this article does not cite the research evidence which helped shape the assumptions they are making.
Not generating a heated debate but, I've come across many men/boys who have been overlooked because their presentation doesn't fit the Daily Mail's stereotyping of ADHD - hyperactive naughty boys!!
The important debate is how do we, collectively, get the issue of poor assessment/dx/treatment provision for all people with ADHD. At the moment Health service provision for adults with ADHD is poor and Camhs comes a very close 2nd
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 12, 2016 20:39:55 GMT
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Post by blaze on Feb 12, 2016 20:41:15 GMT
Unfortunately, this article does not cite the research evidence which helped shape the assumptions they are making. Not generating a heated debate but, I've come across many men/boys who have been overlooked because their presentation doesn't fit the Daily Mail's stereotyping of ADHD - hyperactive naughty boys!! The important debate is how do we, collectively, get the issue of poor assessment/dx/treatment provision for all people with ADHD. At the moment Health service provision for adults with ADHD is poor and Camhs comes a very close 2nd this is true, but ofcourse the reasons there is poor assessment & help for females with adhd may (or may not) differ from the reasons behind why males recieve poor assessment & treatment. And those reasons maybe based in biological differences between the sexes & how this effects our experience of adhd, or it maybe to do with the different social gender roles (which could then be intresting to look at cultures where the social contruction of gender varies from the western perspective) or other reasons- not that this (short) article addresses any of that.....
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Post by blaze on Feb 12, 2016 20:51:34 GMT
Oh and with regards to the statement that females with adhd have greater rates of anxiety/depression etc - it would need factored in that in general males have higher rates of psychotic disorders and significantly higher rates of suicide.
Without context it doesn't mean much
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Post by contrarymary on Feb 12, 2016 21:08:26 GMT
i think considering it's a short slide show from a magazine, rather than an academic peer-reviewed paper, it's a good starting point for a thoughtful discussion and makes some good points and i for one think it's great to see something that doesn't just trot out the old trope of "girls = inattentive, boys = hyperactive" , which we all know to be erroneous i'd be v glad if we were able to gather some other resources about this, not least because much of what is publicised online simply perpetuates the above stereotypical errors and i've come across v little academically-rigorous research in this thanks vagueandrandom
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Post by annie on Feb 12, 2016 21:22:24 GMT
By jings blaze and kathymel, you two are quick!
One has to start somewhere and debating perceived (or not) differences between males and females is not where I want to start. Blaze, all the things you say are all questions I would like answers to but sadly I suspect none of them are going to attract research funding. Kathymel, your link says it all "May be greater for Girls than Boys" We're a long way off having a definitive answer.
My mission is to have the NHS provide easily accessible provision for the dx/assessment/treatment for those adults and children who present with ADHD symptoms. There's a lot more has to come after that but for the meantime, achieving better basic service provision is where I have to put my limited energy.
Don't let my views, in any way, shut down this debate - it's all very interesting.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 12, 2016 21:39:20 GMT
Kathymel, your link says it all "May be greater for Girls than Boys" We're a long way off having a definitive answer. No one is going to say there is a definitive link until far more research has done, however, their observations showed significantly greater effects on girls within some contexts - enough to warrant more research. Likewise boys with the combined subtype were observed to show relatively more adjustment problems.
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Post by annie on Feb 12, 2016 21:55:20 GMT
Therein lies the problem Kathymel. Unless ADHD becomes a recognised condition across the whole of the NHS then, it's never going to attract high quality research. We're such a long way away from achieving the research funding that is afforded to physical conditions, such as cancer, heart disease etc. There's a mountain to climb and my energy is going into getting to 1st base. Let's have Adult ADHD Specialist clinics across the country - after that - well a whole lot of other demands.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 12, 2016 22:18:56 GMT
Therein lies the problem Kathymel. Unless ADHD becomes a recognised condition across the whole of the NHS then, it's never going to attract high quality research. But is it the problem? I'm currently writing a dissertation about ADHD and there are mountain ranges of research about ADHD that cover pretty much every sub-topic under the sun (and it shouldn't matter whether the NHS has done its own or not). It's the most researched neurobiological condition on the planet. (And still they manage to push it under the rug). I agree that recognition is a hugely important goal to aim for, but they need to recognise all the empirical research, not just the popular stuff. For that to happen, we need to increase awareness among ourselves, so that we can propagate it among others. That's why this discussion is as important as any other. And really, why should one preclude the other? I can do both.
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Post by roland on Feb 12, 2016 23:32:24 GMT
Here's a research article that examined neuroanatomical differences in the frontal lobes in boys and girls with ADHD and concluded that there are differences in the morphology of the brains of boys and of girls Neuroimage Clin. 2014 Dec 10;7:222-9. Distinct frontal lobe morphology in girls and boys with ADHD. Dirlikov B, Shiels Rosch K, Crocetti D, et al. Caveat: it is based upon a relatively small number of children
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Post by roland on Feb 12, 2016 23:46:35 GMT
And now just to complicate matters nicely here is a research article that says there are "striking sex differences" in ADHD co-morbidities so the researchers evaluated the hypothesis that personality traits might help explain these differences. They concluded that "sex differences in trait-psychopathology associations may help explain sex differences in comorbidity profiles" J Psychopathol Behav Assess. 2014 Jun 1;36(2):237-245. Personality Traits Elucidate Sex Differences in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Comorbidity During Early Childhood. Martel MM, Gremillion ML, Tackett JL Caveat: another relatively small sample size
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Post by vagueandrandom on Feb 13, 2016 0:37:58 GMT
I don't know why the discussion of women's experiences of ADHD should turn into such an academic and political issue.
It's a magazine article. We should be pleased that things like this are being published to inform people who are looking this up.
Of course there are many more details available and academic studies to be done. . . .and more recognition . . . .etc etc. . .
BUT this is not what this article is about or why I shared it.
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Post by blaze on Feb 13, 2016 6:49:37 GMT
Therein lies the problem Kathymel. Unless ADHD becomes a recognised condition across the whole of the NHS then, it's never going to attract high quality research. We're such a long way away from achieving the research funding that is afforded to physical conditions, such as cancer, heart disease etc. There's a mountain to climb and my energy is going into getting to 1st base. Let's have Adult ADHD Specialist clinics across the country - after that - well a whole lot of other demands. there maybe plenty of high quality research in other countries, and there maybe plenty of opportunities for credible research from other sources over here. It's not an either or.
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Post by Atticus on Feb 14, 2016 23:19:48 GMT
A short piece which doesn't roll out the usual line that women are usually inattentive which is why they're underdiagnosed Except for the bit that says: "Another reason why ADHD girls fly under the radar is that they’re more likely than boys to suffer from inattentive ADHD."
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Post by Lesley on Feb 15, 2016 9:08:42 GMT
A short piece which doesn't roll out the usual line that women are usually inattentive which is why they're underdiagnosed Except for the bit that says: "Another reason why ADHD girls fly under the radar is that they’re more likely than boys to suffer from inattentive ADHD." You're demonstrating a failure of logic here, Atticus . "...more likely than boys to suffer from inattentive ADHD" does not equal "...more likely to have inattentive than hyperactive ADHD".
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Post by vagueandrandom on Feb 15, 2016 10:21:33 GMT
Yes Lesley ( Atticus ) 'Another reason. . . more likely' is very different from 'Predominantly' or a whole article that says that the 'reason' that girls are overlooked is because they are inattentive. You can't dismiss any of the subtypes when discussing ADHD as many articles do. 'Nitpicking' is not helpful to the debate. I agree that girls who are overlooked at school may be more likely to be inattentive, but inattentive boys are probably equally overlooked until later in life. I'm interested in how ADHD is represented in the media to regular people and this article, however imperfect, acknowledges that girls *can* be hyperactive and that their hyperactivity/impulsivity can manifest itself differently than in boys. As a Hyperative/impulsive woman it frustrates me that everything in the media seems to presume that *all* women/girls are inattentive and boys/men are hyperactive. There's almost no media representation of combined type, or the fact that there are a lot of inattentive men out there whose lives have been as badly affected by not being diagnosed until adulthood as women. All of these things need to become better known in wider society. I think that's it's important for ADHD to be represented in a fully rounded way that accepts that there are differences in presentation between genders and also within subtypes.
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Post by shapes on Feb 15, 2016 14:49:37 GMT
The psychiatrist I saw said that part of the problem is in the UK the medical profession tends to use the ICD definitions of mental disorders instead of the DSM. The most current ICD system is ICD-10 although I think ICD-11 is fairly imminent. ICD-10 was adopted in 1992 and doesn't include ADHD, it has HKD (Hyperkinetic Disorder) which is what the DSM (from 1994 onwards, not sure about pre '94) would call ADHD-C (Combined type). Therefore there's a reluctance to diagnose without hyperactive symptoms.
I may not be 100% correct on this as it is partly what I've read as well as what I've been told.
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Post by Atticus on Feb 15, 2016 15:01:03 GMT
The psychiatrist I saw said that part of the problem is in the UK the medical profession tends to use the ICD definitions of mental disorders instead of the DSM. The most current ICD system is ICD-10 although I think ICD-11 is fairly imminent. ICD-10 was adopted in 1992 and doesn't include ADHD, it has HKD (Hyperkinetic Disorder) which is what the DSM (from 1994 onwards, not sure about pre '94) would call ADHD-C (Combined type). Therefore there's a reluctance to diagnose without hyperactive symptoms. I may not be 100% correct on this as it is partly what I've read as well as what I've been told. They should be using the NICE guidelines (link here: www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg72/chapter/1-recommendations ).
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Post by vagueandrandom on Feb 15, 2016 17:09:59 GMT
Atticus FYI on the link to the main site that you provided the first 4 links no longer work.
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Post by Atticus on Feb 15, 2016 18:05:41 GMT
Atticus FYI on the link to the main site that you provided the first 4 links no longer work. Thank you. I've edited the post above so it now leads directly to the guidelines on the NICE site. It seems they have removed the different versions they had written for different audiences (medics, patients etc) and now only have one, full length document.
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