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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
Committees weigh how reliably clinicians can agree on a criterion, what the field trials show, what a particular wording will do out in the world. Categories get added, redrawn, occasionally dropped. Holding that lightly lets you use a diagnosis for what it is good at, which is getting you understood and treated, without handing it the job of telling you who you are.
Do not follow blindly what you do not know to be true (Quran 17:36). Understanding where a label came from is part of not following it blindly.
الإسراء
وَلَا تَقۡفُ مَا لَيۡسَ لَكَ بِهِۦ عِلۡمٌۚ إِنَّ ٱلسَّمۡعَ وَٱلۡبَصَرَ وَٱلۡفُؤَادَ كُلُّ أُوْلَٰٓئِكَ كَانَ عَنۡهُ مَسۡـُٔولࣰ ا
Do not follow blindly what you do not know to be true: ears, eyes, and heart, you will be questioned about all these
Qur’an 17:36read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A scientometric analysis of more than 28,000 ADHD papers across half a century shows a field dominated by treatment and risk factor research, which gives a sense of where the evidence is thick and where it is thin. Knowledge of this condition has a history and a shape rather than being handed down whole. That analysis counts and maps publications, so it says nothing about whether any particular criterion is right.
Cortese S, Sabé M, Chen C, Perroud N, Solmi M. (2022). Half a century of research on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A scientometric study.. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A category is a tool for working out what helps, and tools do not define the person holding them.
Very sweet, very salty, very fatty food acts on the reward system in a way that has more in common with a drug than with dinner. Reaching for it when you are flat is self-medication, not greed.
Much of the symptom wording was written with children in mind. If a question sounds like it is about someone climbing the furniture, translate it into your adult life rather than answering no.
With gambling machines the pull may be the lights and the noise as much as the chance of winning. That changes what you actually need to stay away from.