I need GOOD info on ADD/ADHD.  Need a history of condition e.g. who
discovered it in particular, when was it conisidered a medical
problem.  Also possible alternative to ridillan.  Thanks. Very
Important.  Need for summer session of school.

Greetings Karen52:

This is a fascinating topic for me because I would have probably been
diagnosed with ADD as a child had the condition been better identified
at that time.  I've read extensively on the subject to judge how
closely ADD does pertain to my behavior and one of my closet friends
considers herself ADD so it frequently comes up in our conversations.
 
At http://www.sntp.net/ritalin/myth_1.htm, Thomas Armstrong, author of
"The Myth of the A.D.D. Child: 50 Ways To Improve Your Child’s
Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels or Coercion" states:

"If you should pick up any of the many recent popular books on
attention deficit disorder written by physicians, psychologists, or
concerned parents, you will probably be indoctrinated into the "A.D.D.
myth," a certain set of beliefs offered up as basic truths about why
some children won't behave or pay attention. I'd like to present this
myth to you before going on to explore some of the problems that are
inherent in such a perspective."

He then explains the myth and cites "There is no known 'cure' for
A.D.D., but it can be successfully treated in most instances using
psychoactive medication (usually methylphenidate hydrochloride,
commonly known as Ritalin, but also other drugs, including
psychostimulants, antidepressants, and anticonvulsants), as well as
behavior modification, a structured classroom setting, parent
training, and counseling as needed. There is no known cause of A.D.D.,
but current thinking sees it as involving biochemical imbalances in
areas of the brain that are responsible for attention, planning, and
motor activity."

The article and much more information is located at
http://www.sntp.net/ritalin/myth_1.htm. On down the page, Armstrong
makes the observation that "the APA has shifted dramatically in its
classification of restless and inattentive children. In the early
1950s, the APA had no category for restless and inattentive children.
Children who showed these problems would be listed in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual (DSM) under "organic brain syndromes," and
comparatively few children qualified. With each new edition of the
DSM, however, psychiatrists created categories for hyperactivity and
inattention that included more and more children. As University of
Houston psychologists Gay Goodman and Mary Jo Poillion put it: "The
field [of A.D.D.] has shifted from a very narrow, medically based
category to a much broader, more inclusive and more subjective
category ... In part, this could be because the characteristics for
A.D.D. have been subjectively defined by a committee rather than
having been developed on the basis of empirical evidence."

I found this to be a very comprehensive paper and I believe it will be
a beneficial resource for you.

***********

Dr. Paul Cates published an excellent and comprehensive overview of
ADD's history at the site
http://www.faithchristianmin.org/articles/history.htm.  His facts are
solid and matched what I located on various other sites but his paper
is the best presentation of all those facts in one spot without you
having to visit many different links to compile it yourself.  It's
really a well-written historical overview.

He also mentions the expanding definitions of ADD offshoots:

"The DSM-III, published in 1980 recognized these new developments.
Perhaps the most controversial change from the DSM-II was the
subdivision of the previous category of Hyperkinetic Reaction of
Childhood. This resulted in the following two categories:
Attention-deficit with hyperactivity (i.e., ADHD) and
Attention-deficit Disorder Without Hyperactivity (ADD/WO). Thus, it
became possible to diagnose a patient as experiencing an impairment of
attention without his or her actually being hyperactive.

In subsequent revisions, DSM-III went on to further subdivide the
category. DSM-III-R used the term "Undifferentiated Attention-deficit
Disorder" (UADD) and restricted its use to disturbances in which the
prominent feature is the persistence of developmentally inappropriate
and marked inattention that is not a symptom of another disorder, such
as Mental Retardation or Attention-Deficit Hyper-activity Disorder
(ADILD), or of a disorganized and chaotic home environment. The
DSM-III-R also substituted two disorders, Attention-Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Undifferentiated Attention deficit
Disorder (UADD), for the previous ADD terms (Goodyear & Hynd, 1992)."

**********

Regarding alternatives to treatment with Ritalin, some of that is
covered in the link above to Thomas Armstrong's article and I admit it
was not easy to find much solid research on it because most of the
results returned in searches led to a business selling a product that
claimed to help.

In an article at http://www.eegspectrum.com/Articles/Articles/AlternativeToRitalin/
biofeedback is discussed as an alternative.  Biofeedback in itself is
recognized as a valid self-control tool by many members of the medical
profession and seems to assist many people in controlling emotional
and physical conditions.

Should you need to pursue confirmation of biofeedback, Sonoma State
University offers a professional biofeedback program and has links to
various sources at http://www.sonoma.edu/psychology/biofeedback/research.html

There is also commentary at APA about caffeine being of assistance at
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun01/dangersip.html:

"Traditional treatments, such as the stimulant drugs methylphenidate
and amphetamine, outperformed caffeine in improving functioning and
reducing levels of hyperactivity. However, says Leon, "compared to
giving children with ADHD no treatment whatsoever, caffeine appears to
have potential to improve their functioning in the areas of improved
parent and teacher perceptions of their behavior, reduced levels of
aggression, impulsiveness and hyperactivity, and improved levels of
executive functioning and planning."

Leon believes caffeine's positive effects are not limited to children
with ADHD in terms of curbing aggressiveness.

"Caffeine decreases explosiveness in children who have ADHD, and
similarly increases feelings of calm in people who do not have ADHD,"
she says."

**********

I visited the pages of the American Psychological Association at
http://www.apa.org/ and searched ADD in their search engine.  It
returned a great many links.  The URL for the results page will not
copy here so you'll need to visit the site and type

attention deficit disorder history

and

attention deficit disorder treatment

into their internal search to find the article lists.  Very
interesting there was an article about congressional testimony given
by ADHD children.  The direct link there is
http://www.apa.org/ppo/issues/padhdtest902.html

*********

Should you require any clarification of the links or information I
have provided, please request it and I will be happy to respond.


SEARCH STRATEGY:

George Fredrick Still
George Frederick Still
"history of ADD"
"history of attention deficit disorder" 
ADD ritalin alternative research
APA

I think, this is a rather subjective answer, since Th.Armstrong is not
at all a medical expert. Consider some basic information about
alternative treatment of CHADD (http://www.chadd.org/fs/fs6.htm) or
any other major ADHD-webpage (like www.add.org) to understand the
multimodal treatment approach of ADHD and to get a better insight into
the risks and benefits of psychostimulant therapy.

I have been working with children with a variety of attention
problems--(diagnosed as autistic, Asperger's syndrome, ADHD,
emotionally impaired, sensory integration disorders, not diagnosed,
etc)for 28 years, as an occupational therapist in a public school
system. Myself and many other therapists across the country have used
deep pressure as a calming, focusing technique for many years. I
recently did research with children within their classroom to see if
wearing a weighted vest helped them focus and increase
attention-to-task. The research manuscript was published in The
American Journal of Occupational Therapy in Nov./Dec. 2001 and is
available on-line at www.aota.org. to AOTA members (ask an OT to
access for you). The children in the study showed a 15-25% increase in
attention when wearing the weighted vest, with a 95% probability that
the increase was due to the vest. I went on to work for several years
to design a weighted vest that children liked to wear--because of it's
outer appearance--and that was effective in applying the deep
pressure--like pressing gently down upon the child's shoulders and
muscles of the upper back/chest. This deep pressure seems to have a
calming effect upon the nervous system, somewhat like a massage, or
sleeping under heavy blankets. The children say "It feel's good!".
Many school districts in Michigan are using the vests, along with
parents for their children. They are recently available at
www.otvest.com   if you would like to take a look at an alternative
treatment to medication, or to use along with medication but perhaps
in not as high a dosage.
Hope this helps.