|
|
|
Attention: No Laughing Matter
|
Business New Haven
9/18/2000
By: BNH
|
NEW HAVEN - Never mind those jokes about employees having “attention deficit disorder” (ADD) when they forget to do what you tell them. ADD is a serious condition caused by chemical problems that affect the brain's ability to transmit messages. Fortunately, stimulant medications can help more than 70 percent of the people with this condition.
Everyone has symptoms of ADD sometimes, but those diagnosed with ADD are impaired more consistently and severely, says Thomas Brown, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. He is also associate director of the Yale Clinic for Attention and Related Disorders, and is edited a new book describing recent research on the subject, Attention Deficit Disorders and Comorbidities in Children: Adolescents and Adults.
“Persons with ADD do not have any difficulty maintaining their focus if the task interests them,” Brown explains. “Yet they often are unable to mobilize themselves effectively for many other tasks. This may appear to be a simple problem of willpower and lack of motivation, but it is not.”
Complex forms of ADD are found in both genders, across all ages and levels of intelligence. Brown says research indicates that persons with ADD have chronic impairments in the “executive functions” of the brain.
“ADD symptoms involve impairments in short-term memory and holding one thing in the mind while doing something else,” Brown notes. “The executive functions help you plan and get cranked up to get going with a project, and to hold your focus to pursue the task and finish it, although it might not interest you.”
Medicine can help, though. The brain manufactures some 50 neurotransmitters, and one of those chemicals - dopamine - has been identified as a key to transmitting messages for the executive functions. ADD symptoms are related to chronic impairments in the function of dopamine networks in the brain. Medications that help the controlled release and re-uptake of dopamine can significantly help more than 70 percent of the people with ADD, says Brown.
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
