Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Treatment and medication
A lot of what people now know about ADHD came from a video. Some of it is genuinely good, some of it is not, and asking someone what they have been watching is a fair question to open with.
Creators who live with ADHD have done real good here. They have made people feel recognised and made asking for help less frightening, and some channels are careful and well made. The same feed also carries confident nonsense and a strong pull towards diagnosing yourself from a checklist. Asking without disapproval gets you the actual starting point of the person in front of you, which is more useful than guessing at it.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Ask people who know the Scripture (Quran 21:7). Going to someone who actually knows is the instruction, whatever the medium is that raised the question.
وَمَآ أَرۡسَلۡنَا قَبۡلَكَ إِلَّا رِجَالࣰ ا نُّوحِيٓ إِلَيۡهِمۡۖ فَسۡـَٔلُوٓاْ أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّكۡرِ إِن كُنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ
And even before your time [Prophet], all the messengers We sent were only men We inspired–– if you [disbelievers] do not know, ask people who know the Scripture––
Qur’an 21:7read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Real time fMRI neurofeedback, aimed at the right inferior prefrontal cortex, was tested in adolescents with ADHD in a first randomised controlled trial. That phrase is worth holding onto: first trial. Things that sound impressive online are often at this stage, promising and not yet established, and the distinction rarely survives the journey into a short video.
Alegria AA, Wulff M, Brinson H, Barker GJ, Norman LJ, Brandeis D, Stahl D, David AS, Taylor E, Giampietro V, Rubia K. (2017). Real-time fMRI neurofeedback in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.. Human brain mapping doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Knowing where somebody's picture of ADHD came from tells you what you are actually working with.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Think of ADHD as sitting at the centre of an onion. Poor sleep, sleep apnoea, low vitamin levels, allergy, ongoing pain, untreated anxiety or low mood all sit in layers around it, and each one makes the centre look worse than it is.
Programmes built on crossing the midline or on balance and inner ear work do not appear to beat ordinary exercise. If movement is what you are after, movement is available free.
When a child with ADHD and a parent get stuck in daily rows, the rows themselves start doing damage. Getting the ADHD properly managed early takes some heat out of those exchanges before defiance settles in as a habit.