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Bethany Graham

Dr. Cassel

ENG 1201. 107

8 May 2019

The Overdiagnosis of ADHD in America

When I was about seven years old my little sister Jessica was born.

When she was growing up she was a normal healthy little girl. When she got

to the age of four she started to develop different signs of aggression and

seeming like she was kind of lost when someone would start a conversation

with her. She then began school and teachers started waving red flags and

having conversations with our mother about Jessica displaying signs of

ADHD. In first grade my little sister was held back. Ever since then she has

taken different medications trying to help her focus in school and not be all

over the place when it comes to the classroom environment. After awhile

Jessica would come home not interested in talking about her day and her

lunch box would still be full of the food she hadn’t ate. She wouldn’t have an

appetite in the evening either. This went on for years. She tried different

ADHD medications until the day my mom took her off them. She got off

medicine the middle of eighth grade year. Ever since then she has been

more active in school and even an took interest in art. Over all those years of

trying different medications was she really suppose to be on any of them?

Were they effecting her in a way that maybe she would have been better off

without? Instead of just throwing different medications at her maybe the

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doctors or my mom could have took a deeper look into what was really going

on in Jessica’s head. More and more we come across people who say they

have ADHD and take a medication related to this disorder. Do some of these

people taking medication for ADHD really need to be consuming this drug? I

think the overall question that needs to be asked- is there an overdiagnosis

of ADHD in America today?

If you don’t know what ADHD is let’s take a look into a little bit of

history that comes along with this abbreviated term. The term ADHD stands

for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder which can also be abbreviated as

ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Having this disorder can cause many

different things to occur in someone's day to day life that causes issues.

People may having learning disabilities, trouble staying focused, trouble with

sleep, depression, and extreme highs and lows of anxiety. Not only are

children being diagnosed with it but it’s found among adults as well.

Medication is key to helping people with ADHD. Medicine like Adderall and

Ritalin are the number one medications taken for this condition. Initially back

in a 1970 congressional hearing in the U.S. that psychiatrists appeared and

testified that, what was then called hyperkinetic disorder or minimal brain

dysfunction, was a disease that needed diagnosing by a physician, and as a

disease it justified the use of drugs to treat it (Baughman).

In today’s society everyone knows at least one person who claims they

have ADHD. Whether it be a child or an adult. The numbers have gone up

year after year with the number of people diagnosed with this condition.
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Why? Think of someone who has trouble with waiting their turn, moving

around in their chair, daydreaming, talking to much, having a hard time

sharing with others, and making careless mistakes. Do all of these different

things make you think of a child? Yes, but these are all the different signs of

someone who has ADHD. Studies show that there is at least one child with

ADHD in every classroom in America (Meyer). Wisconsin survey of 250

psychologists showed that 77 percent of initial referrals for an ADHD

examination came from teachers, not parents (Meyer). "Teachers are good at

spotting a child who's different," says Mina K. Dulcan, MD, head of child and

adolescent psychiatry at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of

Medicine (Marsa). The child may cause distractions in the classroom or not

pay attention to what the teacher is saying. The child is then taken before a

doctor and with no questions asked most of the time and prescribed

medicine right then and there for it. Barbara M. Korsch a professor of

pediatrics at the University of Southern California stated “we’re giving

youngsters Ritalin as a solution for poor classroom behavior” (Marsa). Are

parents and teachers ignoring all the facts? Jumping right to the conclusion

that taking medicine is going to be the fixer for everything. If such claims are

made that a child may have ADHD there needs to be a careful evaluation

done, not a quick trip to the doctor to have a medication prescribed

carelessly. Approximately 9.4% of children 2-17 years of age (6.1 million) had

ever been diagnosed with ADHD, according to parent report in 2016 (Data

and Statistics..).
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Some people believe that though a child may have signs of ADHD that

maybe medicine at such a young age isn’t the best route to take. The

University of Wisconsin did a study of 560 Wisconsin students stating that

64% of the kids on drugs experienced side effects sometimes and 30%

almost always; more than half complained of insomnia, 54% of loss appetite,

and 40% of facial tics (Meyer). Dr. Timothy Wilens stated, “The Medicines

should bring out the true child; they should not be chemical straightjackets”

(Meyer). It seems taking the proper time to evaluate what your child needs

over trying to fix the problem in a fast paced manor, could benefit from your

child having long term problems from taking medications. There is no

question that some kids who take this medicine may actually need it. The

problem does not reside there, the problem is that there are to many kids

taking it, who don’t need it. “In the past, diagnosing ADHD was looked upon

with great skepticism, but now it’s almost as if any child behavior problem is
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considered ADHD unless proven otherwise,” says Dr. Anthony Rostain

(Meyer).

With the medications prescribed in today’s world almost every time it

comes with the chance of addiction. Most of the time you only hear of people

becoming addicted to pain medications or anxiety medicine. Medication for

ADHD can now fall under this category of addiction now. It actually falls

under the category of drugs such as cocaine and and opium. Children are not

the only people who are prescribed ADHD medicine, adults take it as well.

Adderall is one of the largest drugs consumed for ADHD. People who do not

have ADHD and take this drug can have side effects that relate to the effects

similar to cocaine. It gives them a high boost of energy and makes them be

able to focus and get tasks done. The biggest consumers of this drug fall

upon college students. College students take this drug to help them stay up
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and study for a long exam or to help finish long homework assignments.

In 2005, there were 31.8 million prescriptions for such medications,

according to IMS Health (Twohey). With that many people being prescribed

this medicine something has to be wrong. Eric Heiligenstein, a clinical

director of psychiatry at UW-Madison’s health services said “We have

students who come in and say they got it just asking for it at other clinics”

(Twohey). When someone is being prescribed a medicine that they don’t

need two things will come from it, they will either misuse the drug, or sell

them to someone else who doesn’t need the medication. When someone

abuses a drug that they don’t need serious problems can occur. Addiction

would come as the number one problem. Students would start to take to

much which would give them the opposite effects. Instead of being able to

focus they would lose focus and not be able to finish assignments. Adderall

makes people stay awake and gives them a lot of energy. If someone is not

able to sleep from taking to much of a substance the effects would become

extremely worse. Not sleeping can make people go crazy. Abusing adderall

might even drive a student to dropout of school.

A survey of students at 119 colleges nationwide found that, on certain

campuses, up to 25% of respondents had misused ADHD medication in the

past year (Twohey). The study also showed that the rates were higher at

colleges that were more competitive. People with ADHD have to show a

persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that

interferes with the person functions or development in their life (Data and
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Statistics..). Therefore it should be a doctors job to be able to collect the right

information to be able to correctly diagnose someone. Not a doctor that just

hands out medication to anyone who wants it.

Along with college students abusing and becoming addicted to these

types of medications they are finding young mothers to abuse this drug as

well. Drug firms see a lot of moms calling in to get their child's prescription

filled early when they still have a lot of time before it’s suppose to be filled

again. "Much as kids are stressed by having to go through school and all

their outside activities, their moms are right there with them," says Stephen

Odom, a Newport Beach addiction specialist (Ellison). You could see why a

mother would take their kids medication, easy access. Maybe the child

doesn’t really need it and has been doing fine without it. The mom takes a

few in the beginning because she knows that it will give her more energy to

get house chores done or cook dinner. The problem is when someone

becomes dependent on something they start to abuse it and take more than

what the script offers for the month. “There’s a lot of denial around these

drugs, and the danger is easy to minimize because that prescription label

can make you feel what you’re doing is safe,” says Brad Lamm, the president

of a New York intervention agency (Ellison). If a mother is calling in a script

every month early, there is a problem. “Just like with any drug, if you can’t

stop, despite adverse consequences, you have an issue,” says Dee Owens,

who has worked in addiction prevention for more than 20 years (Ellison).

Looking at the numbers related with the increase of ADHD it makes

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some people raise questions. What is the real cause to the numbers rising so

rapidly? The prescription of ADHD medication is a 2.2 billion dollar a year

business in America (Marsa). Could one of the real reasons ADHD is

overdiagnosed in America is because of all the money that is profited by the

condition?

I do believe ADHD is a real condition. I think there are people out there

who really do need medication to help with whatever they are dealing with. I

am sure there are children and adults who suffer from this condition whether

it was from the environment they grew up in or some chemical imbalance

that is in their brain. The overall understanding so far is that this condition

and the medications provided for ADHD should be taken more seriously when

it comes to diagnosing someone. Sometimes the treatment can be worse

than the actual illness. A famous psychologist, Abraham Maslow, once said

“if the only tool that you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”

(Lawlis). That saying can be taken many different ways, but for this topic, it

seems like doctors look at any child now who has a behavior problem and

first thing that comes to mind is to prescribe the person medicine. America

works trying to fix the problem as fast as possible. So when it comes to

almost anything, giving a pill to someone thinking it will immediately solve

the problem is the first solution to anything. Maybe there wouldn’t be such a

high number of ADHD medicine given out to people across the country if the

time was taken to actually evaluate and take notes on the person that needs

to focused on.
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When it came to my sister there were certain signs that developed

while she was growing up that she needed medication. I do think my sister

needed the medicine while she was going through her early years of school.

She was able to finally focus and get good grades. The only downfall was the

side effects left her struggling with other things she never struggled with.

When my sister was taken off the medicine she was finally able to go through

school continuing to get the good grades and focus more. I think there are

people who do take medicine for ADHD and benefit from it because they

actually need it. My sister only took it for a certain amount of years, and that

may be the answer for some. Taking adderall or whichever medication that is

prescribed to that person for their ADD condition may only be needed for a

certain period of time.

I think that some older people have to much of an easy access to

ADHD medicine and some people who actually suffer from this disease might

not ever get the right medication needed. When it comes to children I think

the situation needs to be handled a lot more carefully. It needs to have

weeks, if not months, of observing and testing to indicate if a child should

have to take medicine, especially at such a young age. There are other

symptoms like depression that are overlooked when thinking a child has

ADHD. Looking over all the information given it seems like ADHD can be

overdiagnosed in the America.

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Works Cited

Baughman, Fred. "Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Is Not a

Disease." Behavioral Disorders, edited by Roman Espejo, Greenhaven

Press, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010640234/

OVIC?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=0c36e242. Accessed 23 May 2019.

Originally published as "Is ADHD a Fictional Disease?" The Mark News,

18 May 2011.

“Data and Statistics About ADHD | CDC.” Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21 Sept.

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2018, www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html.

Ellison, Katherine. "Mothers' Abuse of Their Children's Medications

Contributes to Drug Supply Shortages." Prescription Drug Abuse, edited
by Margaret Haerens and Lynn M. Zott, Greenhaven Press, 2013.
Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,
http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010865212/OVI
C?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=ab59df9b. Accessed 26 May 2019.
Originally published as "Mother's Little Helper: Stressed-out Women Are
Turning to Their Kids' ADHD Drugs," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 22 Jan.
2012.

Lawlis, Frank. "Drugs Are Not a Long-Term Solution for Attention-

Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder." Behavioral Disorders, edited by Louise I.
Gerdes, Greenhaven Press, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context,
http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010640219/OVI
C?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=33951365. Accessed 26 May 2019.
Originally published as "Taking Control of the Medication Madness," The
ADD Answer: How to Help Your Child Now, Viking Penguin, 2004.

Marsa, Linda. "ADHD Drugs Are Overprescribed for Children." Are

Americans Overmedicated?, edited by Tamara Thompson, Greenhaven

Press, 2011. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010471218/

OVIC?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=1b931765. Accessed 23 May

2019. Originally published as "Is ADHD Getting Out of Control?" Ladies

Home Journal, Apr. 2005.

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Meyer, Michelle. "ADHD Is Overdiagnosed." Attention Deficit/

Hyperactivity Disorder, edited by William Dudley, Greenhaven Press,

2005. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010351203/

OVIC?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=c4c3ac6d. Accessed 23 May 2019.

Originally published as "Should Your Child Really Be on Ritalin?" Better

Homes and Gardens, vol. 81, Sept. 2003.

Twohey, Megan. "Adderall Is a Dangerous, Addictive Drug." Student

Life, Greenhaven Press, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing

Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010691210/

OVIC?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=c12639f9. Accessed 23 May 2019.

Originally published as "Pills Become an Addictive Study Aid: At

Colleges, Students Take a Deadly Risk by Abusing ADHD Drug,"

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 26 Mar. 2006.

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