June 04, 2008

ADHD Misdiagnosed In Canada, Researcher Criticizes ADHD Meds

And that likely means the diagnosis is off-kilter here in the US and in the UK as well. Our various medical cultures don't differ that widely, after all.

Occasioning such blather from me is that Alan Edmunds, a psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario, gave a presentation at a conference in Vancouver, B.C. two days ago. In it, he declared that ADHD was being misdiagnosed across Canada with the exception of Quebec. What seems to be driving things is that doctors have different ideas of what constitutes ADHD and, as a result, kids are being wrongly diagnosed in both directions.

"'I'm not talking about individuals who are obviously ADHD,' he said before presenting his research to the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences being held at the University of B.C. 'We're talking about the individuals who have ADHD-like tendencies. It would not be surprising that the same child would get diagnosed [as having ADHD] by one physician and not by another.'"

I assume he'll be publishing his research at some point, so until then it's not clear how all of that plays out by the numbers. But it's obvious that Edmunds believes that there are serious consequences, principally because he says ADHD meds don't seem to work so well.

"Over-diagnosis is also a problem, in that the usual response is a drug prescription, despite extensive research indicating that medication isn't the best type of intervention, he said.

"'That's not to say that there aren't some children who do very well with the stimulant medication,' Edmunds conceded. 'I know that it works for some students, but I think only about 15 to 20 per cent of all those who receive the medication actually get the benefit that's talked about, the full benefit.'"

Fifteen to 20 percent? Sounds a whole lot like the the percentage who get the full benefit of anti-depressants.

To offer some perspective, in the last year or so researchers have questioned whether depression is being overdiagnosed and have openly asserted that bipolar disorder is being overdiagnosed. Now, we're starting to hear the same noise around ADHD, at least in Canada. It kind of makes you wonder when a researcher is going to step forward and state that schizophrenia or anxiety are overdiagnosed. Or wrongly diagnosed.

This overdiagnosis/misdiagnosis business that's popped up lately in psychiatry is fascinating. For the last 20 years or so, researchers and doctors have acted as if they have had the business of diagnosis hard-wired (there were critics all along of course). It's pretty obvious that the wiring has come undone.

I hope the crafters of DSM-V are paying attention to what's going on out there and that this all ends up someplace good. Or better. Could they at least carve out something in the next DSM that works out how to undiagnose and, maybe, rediagnose people? That'd be nice.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at June 4, 2008 12:03 AM
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What's the big surprise here? Why is this even being covered. Psychologist criticizes 'overdiagnosis' nothing new. I criticize any diagnosis, what possible help can it be to give any kid a lifelong label and indoctrinate him to think he was a genetic brain disease mental defect mental illness behavioral flaw, etc etc.??? It's just a slippery slop to decades of neurological guesswork being thrown at his brain from the 'experts' that brought us TD.

How anyone can even use the word diagnosis with a straight face when you are using a checklist of behaviors is just an obscenity to me. Either get some diagnostic technology that wasn't available in the middle ages, or get out of the business of using medical language and calling it medicine. I watch a kid for an hour tick a box or two, and throw some guesswork meds at his head, CNS, and liver, and I am a 'doctor'. I don't think so, in fact I am charlatan alchemist moron who is a danger to public health, bodily and mental.

No kid needs a shrink anywhere near him. When did that ever work out ok in the history of man? The leading cause of depression for me in this world, is sharing the planet for the next fifty years with these dogmatic true believer shrinks and their corporate posse.

There is nothing to say. Diagnosis is without diagnostic technology, doesn't replicate each time, 'treatment' is guesswork adjusted with hearsay and more guesswork, polypharmacy the end result, no animal test subject in the history of man with the diseases to test the 'treatment' on, nor any human being with objectively demonstrated biomarkers, flim flam, sham, bullshit, obscenity, the whole of psychiatry needs to be rolled into the sea or covered in napalm, worst thing that ever happened to the world after poverty and war. Third worst thing ever, without a doubt.

Hand a kid a lifelong cross to bear because you 'believe' you understand the most complex organ in the known universe? That's hubris, arrogance, and that is guesswork, that is risking real biology, placing bodies in danger, and without a doubt placing self esteem and self determination in mortal danger. You've decided, psychiatry, we want a name for our pain, that parents want a name for their pain, when these poor human experiment victim kids grow up, I hope they hold you to account. For you are indoctrinated criminal zealots, autocratic meddlers, and all the hallmarks of pseudoscience pervade your every single activity.

You've got nothing to offer us at all. Guesswork, stabs in the dark, categories pulled from thin air. You can't show us a thing on the autopsy table nor in full animated life, that cannot be pinned down to your filthy chemical damage to our brains. You are the most disgusting, criminals, I could have ever ended up sharing the planet with in my wildest imagination, and you are real. And you REALLY believe you understand the human mind. Which makes makes you dangerous in itself. But when you remove children and young people's right to be informed of the genesis of your hubris, and the guesswork nature of your pathetic 'science', you commit yourself to the category of pure, human, evil. And I will never in my life have this issue come before me, without disgust and obscenity pulsing through my veins, because someone, some group, some thing, some public, some media, some power, must step the fuck in, and curtail your blank check stranglehold on human distress. Your reductionism, your hubris, your arrogance, your dishonesty to those who come to you at their lowest hour, your endless daily assigning of crosses for people to bear, you must be stopped. You are ruining my ability to be proud to be human being. You are nothing short of the most obscene thing out a nightmare I could have ever hoped to see in hell, you are psychiatry in the 21st century, and your strength grows every minute, your stock prices and boards make us cower to defame you, your evil reps are out visiting with news for the indoctrinated practitioners, your textbooks ask the students to take it all on faith that you know what you are doing, your patients are too doped up and scared to do anything but believe the doomsday song you sing to them, the public is indoctrinated by you, the power of suggestion at work, in all its ugliest forms, for apparently it IS medicine, this 'specialty' with all its knowledge and technology, its pills and its guesswork checklists, apparently they wouldn't be fooled at all if I became a fake psychotic and committed myself right now today, apparently these 'artful' diagnostic technicians would spot me right away, wrong, wrong.

Rape, mangle, disable, worsen, perpetuate, perturb, damage, do your worst (best practice) to the adults who should have been smart enough to see you for what you are. But stay the fuck, repeat stay the fuck, away from the kids. When you touch the kids. You go in the category of human beings I would not grieve for a second. And when you touch the kids, the only thing protecting you is the justice system's threat of reprisal. There is no moral barrier to your removal from the scene. Don't touch the kids. But that is like talking to some Texas cult leader isn't it? When you're indoctrinated from day one of your residency you end up a branch davidian like your colleagues.

Posted by: POe at June 4, 2008 09:12 PM

Your reductionism, your hubris, your arrogance, your dishonesty to those who come to you at their lowest hour, your endless daily assigning of crosses for people to bear, you must be stopped

But stay the fuck, repeat stay the fuck, away from the kids. When you touch the kids. You go in the category of human beings I would not grieve for a second.

STAY AWAY FROM THE KIDS! BUT STAY THE FUCK, REPEAT STAY THE FUCK, AWAY FROM THE KIDS

Posted by: Ana at June 6, 2008 04:26 AM
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