A year ago, the broadcaster Adrian Chiles opened a book on attention deficit disorder (ADD). Suddenly the good, the bad and the mad bits of his life started to make sense. He describes the impact the diagnosis has had on his life
Four years ago, the broadcaster Adrian Chiles went to see a psychiatrist specialising in adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who concluded he probably had ADD – ADHD without the hyperactivity aspect. But it was only when he read a book about the condition three years later, and recognised so much of his behaviour on the pages – the inability to focus, the surges of adrenaline, the procrastination – that he went and got an official diagnosis. Chiles talks to Anushka Asthana about the impact the diagnosis has had on his life, and how it has made him reevaluate aspects of it.
Asthana also talks to Prof Susan Young, an expert in ADHD, which is defined as a clinically distinct neurobiological condition that is caused by an imbalance of chemicals affecting specific parts of the brain responsible for behaviour. She discusses how it manifests differently in children to adults, ways it can be treated and why it is so over-represented in the prison population.
