Patrick McKenna – what are comorbidities?

Dr. Laura Muggli – ADHD commonly occurs with depression OCD it could be a thyroid issue it could be a mood disorder.

Dr. Steven Kurtz – if your child has ADHD, if we make a good diagnosis they have a 40% likelihood of also having ODD a nasty kissing cousin of oppositional defiant disorder and that’s separate from the ADHD.  Kids who break rules their defiant they say no more often than other kids, and that really complicates or flavours the the issues.

Patrick McKenna – Do people with ADHD have a lot of learning disorders?

Dr. Steven Kurtz –  they have a reasonable chance and elevated a chance of having a learning disability they have an elevated chance of also having a language disorder.

Dr. Laura Muggli – it’s very common you know if you are constantly feeling like you can’t get get it done right or you’re not reaching your potential or if you could just only do it the way everyone else does and that affects your self-esteem and your mood and everything else over the years so you know then you have these people with ADHD and depression or low self-esteem you know.

Dr. Lenard Adler – when someone comes in to my office you know the real-world things that they often complain about or some of the consequences of ADHD it may be some of their educational under attainment or some of their difficulties on the job sometimes it’s some of the comorbid conditions that travel with ADHD that they’re thinking about it may be that they’re presenting for depression that’s been chronic and it’s actually the ADHD that has been present it doesn’t mean they’re not they don’t have a history of depression but the ADHD is there and sometimes the depression has been treated and hasn’t responded until the ADHD is diagnosed.

Sometimes it’s that they’ve recently obtained a promotion actually and they have more to manage and their symptoms come forward it’s not that they weren’t there it’s that the impairment increases as their cognitive load increases sometimes it’s a family member’s been diagnosed condition and they see the symptoms in themselves those are some of the common presentations.

Dr. Laura Muggli – one of the other things that we would do a lot of times as we do neuropsychological testing here – to really tease out is it really a problem within with inattention or if they have some other mood  component going on we would also want them to get psychological testing to make sure that it’s not something else or you know going on with them that’s causing the inability to focus and pay attention.

Dr. Steven Kurtz – every ADHD kid is not like every other ADHD kid in fact one of the greatest things I ever heard was you’ve seen one kid with ADHD you’ve seen one kid with ADHD.