{"id":18132,"date":"2024-12-11T15:21:02","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T16:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18132"},"modified":"2024-12-11T16:27:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T16:27:00","slug":"adhd-diagnosis-in-older-people-has-increased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18132","title":{"rendered":"ADHD Diagnosis in Older People Has Increased"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Many say they are relieved to finally have an explanation after decades of struggle.<\/p>\n

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Over her life, Tanya Murphy had become accustomed to hiding her depression. In the Christian social circles in Georgia where she raised her three children, this was the rule \u2014 not the exception, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod forbid you have a mental health issue,\u201d said Ms. Murphy, 56, who now lives in Arlington, Va. \u201cAnd if you do? Girl, all you got to do is fast and pray.\u201d<\/p>\n

But by the time she reached her late 40s, she knew she couldn\u2019t mask her problems any longer.<\/p>\n

Ms. Murphy had developed anxiety and started having thoughts of ending her life. She knew she was smart but she didn\u2019t feel that way. Her difficulty focusing \u2014 as a child, her teachers called her a daydreamer \u2014 had translated into spending thousands of dollars on entrepreneurial projects that she later lost interest in and abandoned.<\/p>\n

After researching her symptoms online, Ms. Murphy realized that she might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., a neurodevelopmental disorder that typically involves inattention, disorganization, hyperactivity and impulsivity. She was finally diagnosed, at age 53, by a psychiatric nurse practitioner. After she began taking the non-stimulant A.D.H.D. medication Strattera, attending regular therapy sessions and meditating, her ability to focus improved and the anxiety and the depression faded away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI cried with joy,\u201d she said. \u201cI knew that I wasn\u2019t crazy. I knew that I wasn\u2019t broken. I wasn\u2019t a failure. I wasn\u2019t lazy like I had been told for most of my life. I wasn\u2019t stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last 20 years, clinicians have increasingly recognized that A.D.H.D. symptoms, which begin in childhood, can linger into adulthood, and that some groups \u2014 like women<\/a> and people of color<\/a> \u2014 are more likely to be underdiagnosed early in life. Now, with the rise of telemedicine, increased awareness of A.D.H.D. and changing attitudes<\/a> about mental health treatment, new A.D.H.D. diagnoses are surging among older Americans.<\/p>\n

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Many say they are relieved to finally have an explanation after decades of struggle.Over her life, Tanya Murphy had become accustomed to hiding her depression. In the Christian social circles in Georgia where she raised her three children, this was the rule \u2014 not the exception, she said.\u201cGod forbid you have a mental health issue,\u201d said Ms. Murphy, 56, who now lives in Arlington, Va. \u201cAnd if you do? Girl, all you got to do is fast and pray.\u201dBut by the time she reached her late 40s, she knew she couldn\u2019t mask her problems any longer.Ms. Murphy had developed anxiety and started having thoughts of ending her life. She knew she was smart but she didn\u2019t feel that way. Her difficulty focusing \u2014 as a child, her teachers called her a daydreamer \u2014 had translated into spending thousands of dollars on entrepreneurial projects that she later lost interest in and abandoned.After researching her symptoms online, Ms. Murphy realized that she might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., a neurodevelopmental disorder that typically involves inattention, disorganization, hyperactivity and impulsivity. She was finally diagnosed, at age 53, by a psychiatric nurse practitioner. After she began taking the non-stimulant A.D.H.D. medication Strattera, attending regular therapy sessions and meditating, her ability to focus improved and the anxiety and the depression faded away.\u201cI cried with joy,\u201d she said. \u201cI knew that I wasn\u2019t crazy. I knew that I wasn\u2019t broken. I wasn\u2019t a failure. I wasn\u2019t lazy like I had been told for most of my life. I wasn\u2019t stupid.\u201dOver the last 20 years, clinicians have increasingly recognized that A.D.H.D. symptoms, which begin in childhood, can linger into adulthood, and that some groups \u2014 like women and people of color \u2014 are more likely to be underdiagnosed early in life. Now, with the rise of telemedicine, increased awareness of A.D.H.D. and changing attitudes about mental health treatment, new A.D.H.D. diagnoses are surging among older Americans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18134,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18132"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18135,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18132\/revisions\/18135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}