ADHD: It’s Not Just One Disease

Some good news and bad news this week for families with children diagnosed with ADHD.

First the bad news: According to new OHSU research, there are many subtypes of the disease meaning we need to study it at great length to identify  all the variations and help develop better treatments.(That will take time)

The good news?

The future looks much brighter for families because we now know that “one size does not fit all” when it comes to treating ADHD.

Another interesting highlight of the research (mentioned in OHSU’s press release)

Although, overall, the ADHD group did more poorly than the control group on all the measures, they noted that in some areas, certain control group patients outperformed the ADHD patients. However, in those same areas, other ADHD patients outperformed the control group. Simply put, not all study participants – ADHD and control – consistently showed the same strengths and weakness. Furthermore, they found that ADHD patients can be subcategorized depending on their deficits and relative strengths, showing unique subgroups among all children with ADHD.

In other words, there are some areas where kids with ADHD may outperform their peers. Pretty interesting huh?

For more info on the research, here is some news coverage

Psych Central: Multiple Forms of ADHD?

Also, some comments from OHSU Researcher Dr. Damien Fair: