| I am also from Germany, but moved to the US for work. I am 29. Recently someone suggested to me I might have ADHD. After learning more about it, I had a feeling that many adults with ADHD have: I suddenly felt like my life story made sense. People below the 5th percentile in ability to concentrate, as measured by this test. My health insurance made me take a CPT test and it indicated that I don't have ADHD. This means that they refuse to diagnose me despite that I have ALL of the inattentive symptoms. I did a lot of research on ADHD after that. Those tests have a 40-50% false negative rate. Luckily I am changing insurance next year. I already made an appointment with another doctor who is an expert in adult ADHD. I don't know false positive rates off-hand, but they are properly much higher. Pretty much any mental or psychical illness causes inattention. There is no reliable test for ADHD. ADHD is not primarily about inability to concentrate, but executive function. Instead, we use the DSM, which advises us to diagnose people with ADHD if they say they have at least five symptoms from a list. This not true. 1. You need to have them "often" (approx. 5th percentile in the population) 2. You need to have them since childhood. 3. They may not be better explained by other disorders. 4. Need to have significant impairment in work, school or personal life. Those criteria are based on decades of scientific research. They are the best way to diagnose ADHD. There has been promising research in computer tests, genetic tests and brain imaging, but none of those are reliable. A good doctor should spend significant time talking to the patient. Ideally they should also talk to other people who know them and review documents such as grade cards from school. |
2. This is no longer considered true; see any of the recent research on adult ADHD.
The last two are obviously good ideas, but they don't really winnow down the pool very much.