ADHD in Adults Glossary of Terms

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20/20: See; Twenty-twenty.

ADHD: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Adult ADHD: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as found in the adult population. ADHD is a well-known childhood disorder that is characterized by varying degrees of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and/or inattention that lead to difficulty in academic, emotional, and social functioning. Children who are diagnosed with ADHD may continue to exhibit symptoms that persist into adulthood. In the 1970s, the condition began to be diagnosed in adults who never received the diagnosis as children but displayed many of the characteristic symptoms. While up to 5% of school-aged children are believed to have ADHD, its prevalence in the adult population is difficult to estimate, but is likely to be in the range of 1%-5% of the population. Symptoms of ADHD in adults can include difficulty following directions, problems information, difficulty with concentration, and trouble with organizing tasks or completing work within time limits. Treatment, as in the pediatric population, can involve both behavioral therapies and medications.

Antidepressant: Anything, and especially a drug, used to prevent or treat depression.
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Antidepressants: Anything, and especially a drug, used to prevent or treat depression.
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Antisocial personality: See: Antisocial personality disorder.

Antisocial personality disorder: A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others and inability or unwillingness to conform to what are considered to be the norms of society.
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Anxiety: A feeling of apprehension and fear characterized by physical symptoms such as palpitations, sweating, and feelings of stress. Anxiety disorders are serious medical illnesses that affect approximately 19 million American adults. These disorders fill people's lives with overwhelming anxiety and fear. Unlike the relatively mild, brief anxiety caused by a stressful event such as a business presentation or a first date, anxiety disorders are chronic, relentless, and can grow progressively worse if not treated.
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Anxiety disorder: A chronic condition characterized by an excessive and persistent sense of apprehension with physical symptoms such as sweating, palpitations, and feelings of stress. Anxiety disorders have biological and environmental causes.
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Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A family of related chronic neurobiological disorders that interfere with an individual's capacity to:

• regulate activity level (hyperactivity),
• inhibit behavior (impulsivity), and
• attend to tasks (inattention) in developmentally appropriate ways. The term "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" is abbreviated and usually referred to as ADHD.

Atypical: Not typical, not usual, not normal, abnormal. Atypical is often used to refer to the appearance of precancerous or cancerous cells.

Bipolar disorder: A mood disorder sometimes called manic-depressive illness or manic-depression that characteristically involves cycles of depression and elation or mania. Sometimes the mood switches from high to low and back again are dramatic and rapid, but more often they are gradual and slow, and intervals of normal mood may occur between the high (manic) and low (depressive) phases of the condition. The symptoms of both the depressive and manic cycles may be severe and often lead to impaired functioning.
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Borderline personality disorder: A serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self-identity.
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Brain: That part of the central nervous system that is located within the cranium (skull). The brain functions as the primary receiver, organizer and distributor of information for the body. It has two (right and left) halves called "hemispheres."

Cluster: In epidemiology, an aggregation of cases of a disease or another health-related condition, such as a cancer or birth defect, closely grouped in time and place. The number of cases in the cluster may or may not exceed the expected number. This is determined by cluster analysis, a set of statistical methods used to analyze clusters.

Cognitive: Pertaining to cognition, the process of knowing and, more precisely, the process of being aware, knowing, thinking, learning and judging. The study of cognition touches on the fields of psychology, linguistics, computer science, neuroscience, mathematics, ethology and philosophy.
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Cognitive therapy: A relatively short-term form of psychotherapy based on the concept that the way we think about things affects how we feel emotionally. Cognitive therapy focuses on present thinking, behavior, and communication rather than on past experiences and is oriented toward problem solving. Cognitive therapy has been applied to a broad range of problems including depression, anxiety, panic, fears, eating disorders, substance abuse, and personality problems.
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Cymbalta: Brand name for duloxetine hydrochloride, a drug approved by the FDA to treat major depresssion in adults and to manage the pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy, nerve damage in diabetes. The drug acts as a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, increasing the levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, two neurotransmitters, or chemical messengers, believed to be important in regulating a person's emotions as well as reducing the sensitivity to pain.

Depression: An illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts, that affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be wished away. People with a depressive disease cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people with depression.
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Diagnosis: 1 The nature of a disease; the identification of an illness. 2 A conclusion or decision reached by diagnosis. The diagnosis is rabies. 3 The identification of any problem. The diagnosis was a plugged IV.
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Duloxetine: See: Cymbalta.

Dysfunction: Difficult function or abnormal function.
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Evolution: The continuing process of change, especially in reference to natural selection.
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Family history: The family structure and relationships within the family, including information about diseases in family members.
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Genetic: Having to do with genes and genetic information.

Hyperactivity: A higher than normal level of activity. An organ can be described as hyperactive if it is more active than usual. Behavior can also be hyperactive.
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Impulsivity: Inclined to act on impulse rather than thought. People who are overly impulsive, seem unable to curb their immediate reactions or think before they act. As a result, they may blurt out answers to questions or inappropriate comments, or run into the street without looking. Their impulsivity may make it hard for a child to wait for things they want or to take their turn in games. They may grab a toy from another child or hit when they are upset.
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Inheritance: Not something that is contained in a will, but rather a gene, chromosome or genome that is transmitted from parent to child.
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Lability: The state or quality of being labile: susceptible to change, error or instability. From the Latin labilis meaning prone to slip, from labi meaning to slip. See also: Labile.

Liver: An organ in the upper abdomen that aids in digestion and removes waste products and worn-out cells from the blood. The liver is the largest solid organ in the body. The liver weighs about three and a half pounds (1.6 kilograms). It measures about 8 inches (20 cm) horizontally (across) and 6.5 inches (17 cm) vertically (down) and is 4.5 inches (12 cm) thick.

Memory: 1. The ability to recover information about past events or knowledge. 2. The process of recovering information about past events or knowledge. 3. Cognitive reconstruction. The brain engages in a remarkable reshuffling process in an attempt to extract what is general and what is particular about each passing moment.
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Motor: In medicine, having to do with the movement of a part of the body. Something that produces motion or refers to motion. For example, a motor neuron is a nerve cell that conveys an impulse to a muscle causing it to contract. The term "motor" today is also applied to a nerve that signals a gland to secrete. Motor is as opposed to sensory.

Nerve: A bundle of fibers that uses chemical and electrical signals to transmit sensory and motor information from one body part to another. See: Nervous system.

Objective: In a microscope, the objective (also called the objective lens) is the lens nearest to the object being examined whereas the lens closest to the eye is termed the ocular (the eyepiece).
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Personality disorder: A disorder characterized by the chronic use of mechanisms of coping in an inappropriate, stereotyped, and maladaptive manner. Personality disorders are enduring and persistent styles of behavior and thought, not atypical episodes. The personality disorders encompass a group of behavioral disorders that are different and distinct from the psychotic and neurotic disorders. The official psychiatric manual, the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, Fourth Edition), defines a personality disorder as an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that differs markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment. Personality disorders are a long-standing and maladaptive pattern of perceiving and responding to other people and to stressful circumstances.
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Pharmacy: A location where prescription drugs are sold. A pharmacy is, by law, constantly supervised by a licensed pharmacist.

Prognosis: 1. The expected course of a disease.
2. The patient's chance of recovery.
The prognosis predicts the outcome of a disease and therefore the future for the patient. His prognosis is grim, for example, while hers is good.
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Psychiatric: Pertaining to or within the purview of psychiatry, the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness.
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Psychiatry: The medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness.
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Psychotherapy: The treatment of a behavior disorder, mental illness, or any other condition by psychological means. Psychotherapy may utilize insight, persuasion, suggestion, reassurance, and instruction so that patients may see themselves and their problems more realistically and have the desire to cope effectively with them.
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Qualitative: Having to do with quality. In contrast to quantitative (which pertains to quantity, the amount).

Quantitative: Having to do with quantity or with the amount.
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Schizoaffective disorder: A mood disorder that is coupled with some symptoms resembling those of schizophrenia, particularly loss of personality (flat affect) and/or social withdrawal.

Schizophrenia: One of several brain diseases whose symptoms that may include loss of personality (flat affect), agitation, catatonia, confusion, psychosis, unusual behavior, and withdrawal. The illness usually begins in early adulthood.
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Sleep: The body's rest cycle.
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Sodium: The major positive ion (cation) in fluid outside of cells. The chemical notation for sodium is Na⁺. When combined with chloride, the resulting substance is table salt.
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Substance: 1. Material with particular features, as a pressor substance.
2. The material that makes up an organ or structure. Also known in medicine as the substantia.
3. A psychoactive drug as, for example, in substance abuse.

Substance abuse: The excessive use of a substance, especially alcohol or a drug. (There is no universally accepted definition of substance abuse.)
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Suicidal: Pertaining to suicide. the taking of ones own life. As in a suicidal gesture, suicidal thought, or suicidal act. An "online lifeline for suicidal undergrads" may help prevent college students from committing suicide.

Symptom: Any subjective evidence of disease. Anxiety, lower back pain, and fatigue are all symptoms. They are sensations only the patient can perceive. In contrast, a sign is objective evidence of disease. A bloody nose is a sign. It is evident to the patient, doctor, nurse and other observers.

Therapy: The treatment of disease.
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Toxicity: The degree to which a substance can harm humans or animals.
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Uncertainty: You may be uncertain why "uncertainty" deserves a place in a medical dictionary but some would say that uncertainty is a key element in medicine.
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