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The Medicalization of Adult Adhd

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The Medicalization of Adult ADHD
Richard W Hall
Schreiner
Professional Nursing Issues - Ethics
NURS 4201 01 N
Professor L. Kendrick
November 27, 2015

The Medicalization of Adult ADHD
You buy another organizing system, to organize your last five organizing systems. You just know this system will be the one to finally get your life in order. Maybe. Could I be ADHD? The person sitting beside you grabs your attention, but so does the heating unit shutting on and off, the fluorescent light flickering above you, and a bird flying by the window! Could I be ADHD? While considering your answer to your boss’ question, you wonder what’s for supper. .. I’m sorry. What was that question again? Could I be ADHD? Funny situations, serious question.
Adult Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) has been the subject of much debate over the past 50 years. In the 19th century children with signs and symptoms like ADHD, if not labeled bad/problem children, could get the diagnosis neurasthenia. In the first half of the 20th century, before the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-1, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), came out in 1952, children with similar symptoms may have been diagnosed as having hyperkinetic disorder if not considered bad/problem children. After the DSM-1, ADHD was referred to as minimal brain damage (MBD). The DSM-II in 1968, referred to ADHD as MBD but said it might continue into adolescence. Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) with two types, with or without hyperactivity, came in 1980 with the DSM-III and said that it must be diagnosed before age 7. ADD was renamed ADHD in DSM-III-R in 1987. The 1986 longitudinal study by Gabrielle Weiss and Lily Trokenberg Hechtman first showed that ADHD symptoms continued into adulthood (Weiss and Hechtman, 1986). And adult ADHD became a viable diagnosis in the

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