3 ms·

The good old "it's over diagnosed so it must be made up" argument.

coldtea 14y ago
By the very definition of what you said, if it's "over diagnosed" then in the majority of cases it IS made up. That's what "over diagnosed" means: more diagnoses than actual incidents. I didn't say it's entirely made up. Some people might legitimately have it. But I'm pretty sure from what I've read that a large majority of them do not. To quote Wikipedia: """In the United Kingdom, diagnosis is based on quite a narrow set of symptoms, and about 0.5–1% of children are thought to have attention or hyperactivity problems. The United States used a much broader definition of the term ADHD. As a result, up to 10% of children in the U.S. were described as having ADHD.""" I read those numbers, knowing how the medical "industry" works -- and how societal, work/life balance, dietary and other such issues in the US are fast to be characterized as "diseases" in need of medication -- with huge grains of salt. 100% more cases in the US? Sounds like a good deal of over-diagnosing the non existent to me.
- btilly 14y ago
  That's what "over diagnosed" means: more diagnoses than actual incidents. No. "Over diagnosed" simply means that it is diagnosed when it shouldn't be. There is nothing there about how frequently it is correctly diagnosed. If the true prevalence is 6% and 9% of kids are given the diagnosis, then it is over-diagnosed. See http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/prevalence.html http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/prevalence.html for the geographic variation on the diagnosis rate. Clearly there are places where it is over-diagnosed. There are others where it doesn't seem to be. I do not know why the ICD-10 has different criteria. The US classification is broader on that because a much wider variety of symptoms looks the same in brain scans, and reacts the same way to medication. Regardless, before medication parent-teacher conferences were elaborations on the theme that my son required more attention than the rest of the class combined, and yet still was behind everyone else on a long list of things (starting with handwriting skills) despite his obvious brilliance. After medication we simply get a note that he is a joy in the classroom, and she wishes that other kids had half of his curiosity. Note, he gets plenty of sleep, eats well, has carefully controlled TV, etc. (My definition of carefully controlled = no TV, under 4 hours/week of movies. The movies that he chooses are documentaries more often than not.)

By the very definition of what you said, if it's "over diagnosed" then in the majority of cases it IS made up. That's what "over diagnosed" means: more diagnoses than actual incidents. I didn't say it's entirely made up. Some people might legitimately have it. But I'm pretty sure from what I've read that a large majority of them do not. To quote Wikipedia: """In the United Kingdom, diagnosis is based on quite a narrow set of symptoms, and about 0.5–1% of children are thought to have attention or hyperactivity problems. The United States used a much broader definition of the term ADHD. As a result, up to 10% of children in the U.S. were described as having ADHD.""" I read those numbers, knowing how the medical "industry" works -- and how societal, work/life balance, dietary and other such issues in the US are fast to be characterized as "diseases" in need of medication -- with huge grains of salt. 100% more cases in the US? Sounds like a good deal of over-diagnosing the non existent to me.

btilly 14y ago
That's what "over diagnosed" means: more diagnoses than actual incidents. No. "Over diagnosed" simply means that it is diagnosed when it shouldn't be. There is nothing there about how frequently it is correctly diagnosed. If the true prevalence is 6% and 9% of kids are given the diagnosis, then it is over-diagnosed. See http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/prevalence.html http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/prevalence.html for the geographic variation on the diagnosis rate. Clearly there are places where it is over-diagnosed. There are others where it doesn't seem to be. I do not know why the ICD-10 has different criteria. The US classification is broader on that because a much wider variety of symptoms looks the same in brain scans, and reacts the same way to medication. Regardless, before medication parent-teacher conferences were elaborations on the theme that my son required more attention than the rest of the class combined, and yet still was behind everyone else on a long list of things (starting with handwriting skills) despite his obvious brilliance. After medication we simply get a note that he is a joy in the classroom, and she wishes that other kids had half of his curiosity. Note, he gets plenty of sleep, eats well, has carefully controlled TV, etc. (My definition of carefully controlled = no TV, under 4 hours/week of movies. The movies that he chooses are documentaries more often than not.)