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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
Ask it gently and let people take their time, because you are asking about grief as much as about pattern. What you are listening for is a habit of risk running through generations who would never have been assessed for anything. Where those deaths cluster, so very often does the impulsivity.
'Go and seek news of Joseph and his brother and do not despair of God's mercy' (Quran 12:87). Ya'qub keeps asking after his family in the middle of the loss, and asking after the family is exactly what this part of the interview is.
يوسف
يَٰبَنِيَّ ٱذۡهَبُواْ فَتَحَسَّسُواْ مِن يُوسُفَ وَأَخِيهِ وَلَا تَاْيۡـَٔسُواْ مِن رَّوۡحِ ٱللَّهِۖ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يَاْيۡـَٔسُ مِن رَّوۡحِ ٱللَّهِ إِلَّا ٱلۡقَوۡمُ ٱلۡكَٰفِرُونَ
My sons, go and seek news of Joseph and his brother and do not despair of God’s mercy- only disbelievers despair of God’s mercy.’
Qur’an 12:87read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Impairment in ADHD is poorly captured by counting symptoms, which is why a dedicated adult quality of life measure was developed and validated to pick up the effects across work, home and daily life. That study measured living adults rather than deaths in a family, so it supports looking at how life actually goes rather than proving anything about accidents in a pedigree.
Brod M, Johnston J, Able S, Swindle R. (2006). Validation of the adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder quality-of-life Scale (AAQoL): a disease-specific quality-of-life measure.. Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Who got diagnosed depends on who could reach a clinic, and how people lived and died does not.
Leave room for grief if it arrives, and come back to the rest of the history later rather than pressing on through it.
Note who is a first degree relative and who is a second, instead of writing 'runs in the family'. Parents, children and siblings sit in one ring. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins sit in the next.
While you are taking the family history, ask about seizure disorders and psychosis too, not only about attention. A family carrying other neurological or psychiatric conditions is worth knowing about whatever you end up concluding.
There is no box you type 'always late' into and get the answer out of. When a sensible strategy is not landing, the work is finding out what is blocking it rather than producing another strategy.