ADHD Comorbidities: Handbook for ADHD Complications in Children and Adults

Many books address various aspects of ADHD-but ADHD Comorbidities: Handbook for
ADHD Complications in Children and Adults is the only one that covers the
multiple ways in which ADHD is complicated by other psychiatric and learning
disorders in both children and adults. It features comprehensive, research-based
information on the condition and its full range of comorbidities, from mood
disorders to developmental coordination disorder, written by
researcher-clinicians familiar with the complications that these additional
disorders pose. The authors summarize in accessible language what is currently
known about ADHD and its comorbidities from preschool age to adulthood,
describing how ADHD produces different profiles at different stages of
development.

The book offers a new paradigm for understanding ADHD,
viewing it not as a simple behavior disorder but as a complex developmental
impairment of executive functions in the brain. In describing combinations of
disorders in various age groups, this effective guide shows that significant
impairments can occur in adolescence and adulthood, when individuals face
increased demands for self-management. And because adults with ADHD are likely
to have at least one additional psychiatric disorder at some point in their
lives, this handbook also describes how to adjust treatment strategies for both
ADHD and additional disorders to reduce the impairments resulting from
comorbidity. Among the book's features: It reviews aspects of ADHD not only
for elementary-school children, adolescents, and adults but also for
preschoolers, giving ADHD developmental context by describing how symptoms in
preschool years differ from those in older children Eleven chapters offer
practical clinical help for patients whose ADHD appears in combination with
other disorders, including aggression, mood disorders, obsessive/compulsive
disorders, substance abuse, Tourette syndrome, and the autistic/Asperger's
disorder spectrum. It presents guidelines for assessing and treating
complicated ADHD, including psychopharmacological treatment, psychosocial
treatment, cognitive therapy, and tailoring treatment to individuals and their
families. It provides guidance on adapting and adjusting medications and other
interventions to optimize treatment effects for the wide diversity of complex
cases that embody ADHD. It contains useful information about how to discern
other disorders when the chief complaint suggests ADHD-and how to detect ADHD
when the patient's presentation has been modified by the presence of other
disorders.

With its comprehensive summaries of research and wealth of
clinical guidance, this handbook clearly shows how attentional disorders are
related to other conditions and how patients with these more complex variants of
ADD can be more effectively recognized and treated.