ADHD - An Illustrated historical overview

A lifespan issue W hen Time magazine headlined on July 18, 1994, that "not just kids“ suffered from ADHD, there was already strong agreement that ADHD affects adults as well as children. The hypothesis of a lifespan disorder was tested in various studies from the late 1960s on, when Miriam Menkes and her group presented data of a 25-year follow up study on hyperkinetic chil- dren. Of 18 fully re-examined patients, "hyperactivity was still present in three subjects aged 22 to 23 years and had disappeared between the ages of 8 and 21 in the others.“ Further longitu- dinal studies in the following two dec- ades (e.g. Mendelson and colleagues; Weiss and colleagues; Gittelmann and colleagues) showed that symptoms in- deed persisted into adulthood, a diag- nosis also supported by studies on the efficacy of psychostimulants in adults (Wood and colleagues 1976 and stud- ies by Paul Wender). As one of today´s burgeoning areas of inquiry, research on ADHD in adults will surely have its place in the upcom- ing decades along with research on neuroanatomy, comorbidity, genetics and therapy. While the chances of full regression of ADHD symptoms dur- ing early adulthood are not great, an interesting social aspect seems to be life quality of all affected age groups as well as only indirectly affected healthy parents. As recent longitudinal comparisons between patients with simple disorders of activity and atten- tion and patients with a hyperkinetic conduct disorder by Remschmidt and Mattejat (2010) have shown, the latter group underperformed in life quality improvements, and their parents suf- fered more. It may thus be a worthwhile future endeavor to focus greater attention on life quality issues, on the effect of ADHD on daily life and work environ- ment, and to transfer knowledge to geographic areas where social aware- ness is not yet as high as in countries with a strong historical background in ADHD research.