Howdy I’m Rick green from TotallyADD.com and you are, well you, from wherever you’re from, no need to apologize. In the past two decades there has been an explosion in the number of cases of ADHD in kids and ADHD in adults, at least in North America. I don’t like using the term case we’re not cases, sounds like we’re ill or there’s something to cure, solve maybe, manage definitely. Since ADHD is highly heritable, almost as heritable as your height, most of us are born this way, toward that end of the spectrum or the bell curve, in terms of you know uneven attention and forgetfulness distraction restlessness of patience, tendency to interrupt and over-talk and get off on tangents. But why has the number of cases skyrocketed however you slice it and I don’t know why you’d bother slicing it ADHD is not cake. I love cake never mind about the cake. It’s a  neurodevelopmental disorder and the number of cases is going up and up and will probably continue for a while to go up and up. I’ve heard a lot of different explanations reasons and theories but here are seven that makes sense to me.

Look this is a neurodevelopmental disorder premature babies are not developed or fully developed they’re premature and science is now able to keep premature babies alive babies that are born weeks too early even months too early so perhaps this prefrontal cortex may not be fully developed maybe it never develops which means they’re behind and maybe they’re always behind, who knows it does explain why some people with ADHD seem to be immature or we tend to socialize as kids with kids who are younger than us. In grade twelve most of my friends were in grade nine.

Second reason the definition keeps changing and kind of expanding the latest edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition or DSM-V standard reference for mental health issues the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual which I don’t understand what that means, anyway it’s the standard reference for psychologists psychiatrists that came out in 2015 latest edition and for the first time ADHD was recognized in adults for the first time. Funny I was diagnosed back in 2001 apparently I was a man ahead of his time which is actually not like me.

Third reason teachers doctors and parents are getting better at recognizing ADHD in kids the level of stigma is still huge the level of ignorance and mythology is still enormous but it’s abating it’s going down it’s improving and more and more people are willing to look reason for schools get extra money if they get students with ADHD so there’s kind of an incentive to go yeah that’s ADHD yeah that’s a yeah we get more money and get more staff, we get extra funding and then families may be able to get financial aid students can get accommodations so there’s incentive to diagnose people with ADHD and they may not have it which is a problem because then it stigmatizes the people who do have it when you have people who don’t have it saying they do have it and they don’t and the people who do are then just you’d understand.

#5 – far too many college students believe that well of ADHD medication makes a dramatic difference in the ability of students with ADHD to focus and pay attention and cut out the distractions stick with things it helps improve memory and all that and the medications may do that can do that for people then imagine how great they’d be for people who don’t have ADHD. Doesn’t work that way so people who are faking the diagnosis to get pills are again skewing the results my advice if you don’t have ADHD stick with the stimulant that’s much easier to get hold of caffeine.

# 6 – the pace of life today the urbanization there’s so much more going on if you lived on a farm 150 years ago even a hundred even fifty years ago probably even today and you had ADHD it wouldn’t be that much of a problem you wait a day later to get the crops in but in today’s world where everybody’s timing things down to the second where people are entering 33 on their microwave to save time from going 39 because they might take longer. All of this puts extra strain and stress on you.

#7 – it’s really hard to diagnose this it’s very easy to miss that it’s ADHD and just misdiagnosed the person with depression or anxiety which they probably will have if they’ve been living the life with undiagnosed and unmanaged ADHD .

#8 – okay I know I said I’d be doing seven number eight the schools are so crowded the kids are in school longer you know again fifty years ago a lot of people got to Grade seven eight nine that’s all they needed to go out and get a really good job and actually make a fairly good living as well some people are suggesting the fact that we put kids into daycare very early where they’re surrounded by other kids and they’re not ready necessarily to socialize stress as the kid overwhelms them and so on.

#10 – yes I know I said seven your this is a bonus stop complaining the internet videogames cell phones all are shortening our attention spans social media like like like the people like update update update is that causing ADHD there’s definitely studies that are showing it is shortening our attention span and maybe it’s starting to actually make people more ADHD like people who would be not necessarily in that top four or five percent maybe they’re in the top 15 and now they’re they’ve got that brain that’s going like that.

there’s no number eleven I said I was only doing seven gotcha serves you right. so there’s been an explosion in ADHD diagnosis but that doesn’t necessarily mean that more people have it it’s kind of the difference between the diagnostic rate and the actual rate the prevalence in the population the number of people diagnosed has gone up the prevalence may be actually kind of steady I mean it’s like how many people have been called an idiot in their life? Lots but what percentage of the population are actually idiot? probably is lower level although on some days I would say you know we’re under diagnosing that