ADHD in Adults Slideshow Pictures Take the ADHD Quiz ADHD Symptoms in Children Slideshow Pictures

Medical Author:

Roxanne Dryden-Edwards, MD

Roxanne Dryden-Edwards, MD

Dr. Roxanne Dryden-Edwards is an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist. She is a former Chair of the Committee on Developmental Disabilities for the American Psychiatric Association, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and Medical Director of the National Center for Children and Families in Bethesda, Maryland.

View Full Profile

Medical Editor:

William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR

William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR

Dr. Shiel received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Notre Dame. There he was involved in research in radiation biology and received the Huisking Scholarship. After graduating from St. Louis University School of Medicine, he completed his Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology fellowship at the University of California, Irvine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.

View Full Profile

Medical Treatment

When medication is used effectively for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), patients notice a significant improvement in control. Objective observers, such as acquaintances or coworkers, should notice more focus, better concentration, and improved task completion.

Remembering what medicine does and does not do is very important. Medicine, when used successfully, simply makes a person with ADHD function more like a person without ADHD. As a comparison, using medication is like putting on glasses. It makes the system function more appropriately, just like glasses help a person achieve 20/20 vision. Medication alone will not make a person with ADHD sit down and write a paper any more than glasses alone will. Medication allows the nervous system to send its chemical messages more efficiently, but it does not provide skills or motivation to perform.

Medication is designed to help a person with ADHD be less forgetful and distracted, so that he or she can stick to a plan and achieve daily goals. People with ADHD who are on effective medication can have improved attention span, concentration, memory, coordination, mood, and task completion. At the same time, daydreaming, hyperactivity, anger, and immature or oppositional behavior may decrease. Medical treatment allows a person's intellectual capabilities that were already present to function more appropriately.