Did you know that individuals with ADHD may struggle to swallow pills? Now, there is a potential solution!

** Please discuss all medication interventions with your medicating physician. The following is only offered as information to help you make an informed treatment decision.

After diagnosis, the decision to try or not to try medication is a difficult one and one that I spend a significant amount of my days discussing. I am not pro or anti-medication interventions, as I see it as an individual choice. All I offer is up-to-date research on the myths and facts about medication and how it may help or hinder ADHD symptoms.

In my practice, one of the saddest things I see with my clients is when their bodies do not respond to ADHD medication interventions. There can be such hope that medication will provide a solution to their struggles; when it doesn’t work for them, it can be crushing.

Another challenge for my clients can be the physical act of taking the medication.

Anxiety often accompanies ADHD. This anxiety, often accompanied by negative experiences of pills getting stuck in the throat, can make it very difficult for children (and even adults!) to swallow pills. My 75-year-old mother-in-law has struggled with this her entire life. Today, we ensure her pudding cupboard is fully stocked so she can take her pills without choking. She would give anything to have an alternative to her blood pressure, cholesterol, and other pill-form medications.

There can also be a reluctance to take the medication due to the taste or feel of the pill in the mouth. Some medications (Vyvanse, Biphentin) can be opened and sprinkled into pudding or yogurt. Others must be swallowed intact to have full effect (Strattera, Intuniv).

Having ADHD and remembering to take your medication is enough of a struggle. An additional taste or swallowing barrier to getting the medication in your body or your child’s body is something no one needs.

Thankfully, Health Canada has approved the liquid form of Quillivant XR for Canadians. Quillivant XR is the first and only liquid, extended-release methylphenidate product approved for children 6 to 12 years of age in Canada. In the US, it has also been approved for adults. Stay tuned to our newsletter for updates, and keep your fingers crossed for the day when Health Canada approves the medication for adults. Most recently, the Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance (CADDRA), the independent and preeminent not-for-profit resource organization for ADHD research, has updated their Medication Guide for Professionals, a widely used resource for doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists.
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For more information on Quillivant XR, connect with your medicating physician, or Health Canada. 

Clinical relevance: ADHD traits like distractibility and excessive movement might have helped early humans in foraging for resources, suggesting they conferred an advantage in certain contexts.
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• Estimates indicate that a significant portion of both children and adults have ADHD, with associated challenges extending into various aspects of life.
• Collaboration between scientists from Pennsylvania University and the Indian Institutes of Technology involved 457 adults completing foraging tasks to assess ADHD traits.
• Participants with higher ADHD-like behavior scores demonstrated greater foraging proficiency, suggesting ADHD might serve an adaptive function in competitive environments.

It turns out that the ancestors of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients received an evolutionary gift. Even if it doesn’t necessarily translate into today’s society.
Scientists from Pennsylvania University and the Indian Institutes of Technology collaborated on a research project that shows traits tied to ADHD – distractibility and excessive movement – might have helped early humans when foraging for resources.

“If [these traits] were truly negative, then you would think that over evolutionary time, they would be selected against,” lead author and Penn researcher David Barack, PhD, told The Guardian. “Our findings are an initial data point, suggestive of advantages in certain choice contexts.”

ADHD and Its Ripple Effects
Estimates vary, but according to the American Psychiatric Association, 8.4 percent of children and 2.5 percent of adults have ADHD.

However, more recent research suggests that up to 3.1 percent of adults live with the disorder. And the historical data has reinforced the conventional wisdom that ADHD can spill over into everyday life, whether it’s “elevated rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and self-harm,” as Psychiatrist.com has reported before.

Clinicians have also linked lifelong – and often undiagnosed – ADHD with “poor social outcomes, impacting emotional support and leading to higher rates of unemployment or disengagement from education, a phenomenon known as NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training).”

Looking Past a Genetic Anamoly
To test their theory that there might be more to ADHD than just random genetic mutations, ​​Barack and his team assembled 457 adults and had them complete an online assessment that had them conduct foraging tasks. The drill had participants attempt to collect as many berries as they could within a set time.

Additionally, the computer foragers could either linger at a single foraging site in a bid to dig up more berries, or they could move on to other potential sites.

After the exercise, the scientists tested each of the participants for ADHD.

Consistent Results
Nearly half of the participants screened positive for ADHD on a short self-assessment, a statistically higher share than one would normally expect for a random sampling.

The researchers discovered that the subjects who scored higher on the ADHD self-assessment spent less time with each berry patch than others. They were willing to leave a berry patch after the yield dwindled and search for a new one. And maybe most importantly, those participants consistently posted higher scores in the game.

“In competitive environments where foragers must keep track of other foragers, impulsively leaving patches could yield a competitive advantage by enabling learning about competitors and capturing newly renewed resources first,” the authors in the study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. “The increased foraging proficiency of participants with ADHD-like behavior observed here suggests the prevalence and persistence of ADHD in human populations may serve an adaptive function in some environments.”

Check out the original article here.