Are there treatments for adults with ADHD?

by | Kids and Teens Health, Mental Health, Videos

 

There are treatments for adults with ADHD. They include firstly, an accurate diagnosis. If you don’t have an accurate diagnosis then it’s impossible to treat that problem.

Secondly, once there’s an accurate diagnosis, the treatments can break broadly into medicines or biological treatments and non-biological or non-medicine treatments. On the medicine side, there are various treatments such as Ritalin (methylphenidate) or Dexamphetamine or, antidepressant medicine such as Strattera, which can be very effective in adult ADHD.

On the non-medicine side of things, it’s really about understanding exactly what the core issues are with ADHD and that particularly relates to lack of concentration and inattentiveness, and how one organises one’s work or social existence around these core difficulties.

Exercise for example, in some individuals, can actually be quite helpful in adult ADHD and thinking through what are your core difficulties and working with clinical psychologists who specialise in the area can be quite helpful in working through non-medicine approaches.

Dr Matthew Cullen, Psychiatrist, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney