Dr. Robin Lowey & Associates Psychological Services’ Post

Transcript

Hey everybody, I am here to talk about ADHD evaluations. Who should consider having one and what kind of evaluation you might need if you are considering having one. So we have a lot of folks who come to us who believe that they have an undiagnosed ADHD. And what they will usually say first is that they're having a hard time focusing, a hard time concentrating. And while that is a hallmark symptom of ADHD, it is also a symptom of all sorts of other mental health conditions as well. You know, when people are depressed, they have a hard time focusing. When they're anxious, they have a hard time focusing, so that in and of itself wouldn't prompt a full ADHD assessment. But if you are also feeling like you're having a really hard time just managing the tasks of life, hard time getting motivated to complete tasks, finding it difficult to manage your time, I have a chronic sense of feeling overwhelmed, unable to meet deadlines, restless, difficulty sitting still, and inability to manage tasks. Get task complete. And especially if all of that has been going on for a long time. If you look back and you say I've always been this way, I managed to do well in school or I managed to achieve a certain level of success, but it's always been hard for me. I've always struggled to to keep it all straight, to keep it all organized. That's really good indication that you could have ADHD and then an evaluation might be beneficial for you. And so then the question is what kind of evaluation would be most beneficial for you? And the way we answer that question is by thinking about what you need it for. So for everybody in that that category that I just talked about who's had all those different symptoms over time, it would be beneficial for them to know if they have an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, because they want to get the best kind of treatment for what they actually have. They want to be able to find practitioners who are skilled and who understand how to best behaviorally manage the condition, how to teach the right kind of strategies to manage the condition. They may also want to try stimulant medication, right? And our prescriber will often want a comprehensive assessment before providing a stimulant medication. And so if that's the case, we can do a focused evaluation to diagnose ADHD. Now, focus does not mean that it's not comprehensive. It is still a very comprehensive assessment. We will do a. Comprehensive clinical interview with you where we get all sorts of background information. We're going to ask for educational records, if you have access to them, so we can look back at that. We will do tests of intellectual functioning. We'll do a continuous performance test, which is a test that very specifically addresses ability to focus and pay attention and distractibility, that kind of thing. We'll take all of that information and come up with a diagnosis. If we do think that you meet the criteria for ADHD, we'll provide you with that. Diagnosis. Either way, we'll provide you with a comprehensive report that outlines how we arrived at our diagnosis and that provides a whole lot of recommendations for treatment. That report can then be used to bring to a prescriber if you want to try a stimulant medication, it can be used to find the right kind of practitioner, all sorts of things. Now if you need the diagnosis for something else, we may have to do a more comprehensive assessment. So sometimes folks will come to us with all of the symptoms that we described and they'll say, and now I want to take the Lsats and I am worried how about home and manage on this test, right? I think I need extended time or I think I need these kind of accommodations at work or school. If you need those things, we will have to do some additional testing in addition to everything that I already talked about. We'll have to do some achievement related testing and some other. Things that will take more time and we'll be more costly. And so, so we have these two different kinds of evaluations. We basically have a tiered evaluation system where we can do it a little bit more affordably for you if you need it solely for treatment purposes. And if you need it for because you need accommodations, a lot of the agencies that monitor and determine whether you can have accommodations have specific requirements about all the kinds of testing they need and then we need to do them much more comprehensive version which. Ends up costing a bit more. But either way, if the symptoms that I just described to you sound like you, you might want to consider getting an assessment for ADHD. It can be wildly beneficial to have the right diagnosis so that you can get the right treatment. If you have any additional questions about it, we are here to answer them for you.