Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder – growing knowledge requires new therapeutic options

Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood is a fairly common disorder, with a prevalence of about 5%, and is well known to every child and adolescent psychiatrist. Treatment options remain controversial, however: Should only psychotherapeutic and sociotherapeutic methods be used in children and adolescents, or should pharmacological intervention already be employed in childhood? Is it responsible to give methylphenidate to children and adolescents? These questions are also discussed for adult ADHD, where we face the particular circumstance that the very existence of the disorder in adulthood only became a topic in German-speaking psychiatry in the late 1990s, and that considerable diagnostic uncertainty therefore persists in clinical practice to this day.