Adhd

THE GREETING CARD DIDN'T open - it was just a flat piece of paper meant to befuddle its reader. I bought this card because it reminded me of you. Wake Forest@Maryland Saturday, 7:45 p.m., ESPN, 1300 AM, 105.7 FM Line: Maryland by 1 1/2

Like many young mothers, Sophie Currier is a busy woman. There's all the family stuff at the Brookline, Mass., home she shares with her partner, Jeremie Gallien, and their 7-month-old son, Theo. There's work - a teaching assistantship for a biochemistry course at Harvard University. And there's school. After majoring in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Currier got a doctorate in neuroscience from Harvard and is on track to get her medical degree in a year. The striking thing is that Currier does all this not only with severe dyslexia - she couldn't read until she was 8 - but with ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well.

WASHINGTON -- A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel urged yesterday beefed-up warnings for drugs used to treat attention deficit disorder after hearing about hundreds of cases in which children using the medications experienced frightening hallucinations, often involving bugs and snakes. The panel, which focuses on pediatric issues, rejected the idea of calling for so-called black-box warnings - the strongest label warnings the FDA can impose - in part because of testimony by psychiatrists and other medical specialists that the drugs fill a critical need for treating mental health problems in children.

My 10-year-old granddaughter has ADHD. She has been prescribed Concerta and Ritalin and takes both pills every morning. At a family party, my wife and I noticed that our granddaughter's pants looked three sizes too large. She was constantly pulling them up. I asked my daughter about this. She said the medicines have affected the girl's appetite and are also causing sleeping problems. She just nibbles and picks at her food, so her mother gives her vitamins. She is short for her age and extremely thin.

For most of her life, Kimberly Majerowicz knew there was something wrong in her brain -- but she couldn't tell what it was. As a teenager, she was distracted and angry. As a medical sales representative, she waited until the last minute to make her quotas. As a mother, she was depressed and tuned out, though she desperately wanted not to be. It wasn't until her oldest daughter, Danielle Dodaro, was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder at age 13 that Majero-wicz completed a "homework assignment" for parents -- a checklist that revealed she had the disorder, too. The Timonium woman, now 39, was relieved.

Pre-adolescent rats given the popular ADHD drug Ritalin are more likely to show signs of depression in adulthood, according to a Harvard study. The study suggests that stimulants, at least in the normally developing brain, can have unsuspected effects in adulthood. The findings also underscore the importance of an accurate diagnosis for ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. William Carlezon, director of McLean Hospital's Behavioral Genetics Laboratory and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in Puerto Rico.

Diagnosed with attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder two years ago and worried that the condition was interfering with his work, Kirk Hadsell decided to try something new. He called in a coach. Neither a doctor nor a therapist, Hadsell's coach was more like a personal trainer -- only instead of encouraging him to exercise, she focused mostly on ways to boost his career and, to a lesser extent, improve his personal relationships. They devised a structured plan for him to follow. One year after first meeting his coach, the 52-year-old home inspector says he's doubled the size of his business and has made progress in his personal life.

In Baltimore City Indoor ice rink in Patterson Park is open for season The indoor ice rink in Patterson Park - named after late City Councilman Dominic Mimi DiPietro - has opened for the skating season, which runs through March. The rink, at 200 S. Linwood St., features public and private skating lessons and youth and adult ice hockey. Registration has begun for the Patterson Park Penguins, a women's ice hockey clinic, and for the Patterson Park Rink Rats, a youth clinic for ages 4 to 16. Private parties also can be arranged.

PHILADELPHIA --Ritalin is a godsend for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a neurological impairment that derails concentration. But it's not just the class troublemaker or fidgety kid who is taking the drug these days. Ritalin is becoming a popular recreational drug among young people. It's time for the schools to get tougher to help prevent the use of Ritalin for pleasure. Federal officials recently began investigating public schools to address theft, illicit sale, and abuse of ADHD medications.

Kimberly Diconza, a political science major at the Johns Hopkins University, says she is dyslexic and has an auditory processing problem and attention deficit disorder. She also has a 3.4 grade point average. "I think for someone with a learning disability, that is pretty remarkable," she says. It might be remarkable, but it is no longer unusual. As more students like Diconza have moved through special education programs in elementary and secondary schools, they have become a growing presence on college campuses during the past decade.