In a survey of 201 parents and caregivers, 74% of children were easily distracted, 73% did not listen to caregivers, and 66% were unable to sustain attention to tasks during the early morning, even when they took their stimulants as directed, according to Floyd Sallee, MD, PhD, chief medical officer of Ironshore Pharmaceuticals & Development, and a volunteer faculty member at the University of Cincinnati. ..He and colleagues reported the findings at the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD) meeting here.

A McMaster University-led study has found that the mothers of teens with food allergies are more likely than the kids themselves to report that the youth have emotional and behavioural problems. Following 1,300 children involved in an Australian study, the researchers found that at 14 years old, about a third of teens with food allergies reported they had emotional and behavioural problems, but more than 46 per cent of their moms reported those problems. These were depression, anxiety or ADHD rather than defiance or misbehaviour.

Winter may just be starting, but fall academic planning is only a few months away. Remember that grades are not the bottom line for academic planning. Some students get reasonable marks even while struggling significantly with ADHD, which can affect anything related to planning and organization...During school meetings, you can use the following checklist (a download is also available) to guide discussion about potential accommodations.

In the not-so-distant future, will playing video games be part of the prescription for treating children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? That's what one company, Akili Interactive Labs, Inc., is hoping for. The Boston-based company just raised $30.5 million in venture capital funding to support clinical development for a game called ""Project: EVO."" The developers hope it could be a game changer in helping people with ADHD. Akili aims to apply for FDA clearance and launch the product in 2017, according to a press release announcing the funding.

The ADHD phenomenon is typically equated with hyperactive young boys, but a recent study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests that many adult women suffer from the disorder and have not been properly diagnosed. ADHD looks different in women...In 2013, the DSM-5 revised the ADHD diagnostic criteria to account for the differences between male and female symptoms, but popular opinion continues lag behind, considering the disorder in terms of outdated studies conducted solely on young males.

We all know (or were) the kid who makes us wish for the invention of a Ritalin blow dart. But is it a good idea to put kids on psychiatric meds? And once they’re on, how long is long enough? The Savvy Psychologist tackles the topic of psychiatric drugs that start early and last a lifetime.

About a third of some 4,000 patients who gave urine samples turned up negative for their prescribed stimulants, Mancia Ko, PharmD, of Ingenuity Health -- a service of Ameritox, a medication monitoring company -- and colleagues reported at the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD) meeting here. In samples where the prescribed stimulant wasn't detected, THC was present more than 20% of the time, and some combination of a nonprescribed opioid, nonprescribed benzodiazepine, THC and/or cocaine was found more than 38% of the time, they reported.

Results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication found an estimated prevalence of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder of 4.4%, according to findings published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2006. Researchers noted that the estimate is likely conservative, in part because of more subtle symptoms in adults compared with children. Healio.com/Internal Medicine presents the latest research on adult ADHD that physicians should know, including onset of the disorder, risk factors and therapy outcomes.

The Food and Drug Administration is failing to protect children from the disturbing behavioral problems caused by artificial food dyes, even though evidence of those problems has continued to mount since 2011, when an FDA advisory panel last considered the issue. That’s the finding of a new report, released today by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, that takes a withering look at the agency’s inaction on dyes in the face of what CSPI says is a growing consensus among researchers and healthcare providers who treat behavioral problems that avoiding food dyes benefits some children.