ADHD & Digital Medicine (Apps & Games) 

Hah! Thanks for sharing, that's interesting to know.

That totally makes sense. I think Cognitive Behavioural Therapy/Training is great for increasing awareness and cognitive skills. But you cannot 'teach' your brain to produce dopamine or norepinephrine by practicing something, whether in real life or digitally. I can learn to play a game and become a master of it, but that will not compute to helping my ADHD symptoms on a daily basis.

Hey I'm not a doctor, but a person who takes meds and has an ASD kid. 1 month is not enough to see a result, it's usually 6 weeks. Also when they start low dose it's for results and tolerance, they need to know that your child will not have adverse reactions. Guanfacine is for impulse control, but also helps with emotional disregulation. My son was on it as well, he felt like it didn't help; I noticed a difference. All this to say don't give up, don't be scared and a good psychiatrist will never just throw medication at you. If you feel like you can't trust them, they don't educate on the plan for what they want the medication to do: try to get another one. Just remember you're doing your best with what you are offered. Especially if you have ADHD yourself.

No that I see the more severe symptoms in my son I know now that I suffered from this and I'm going to make an appointment with my doctor. Thanks for the encouraging words. @@opalcolon4902

Hello, I am also not a doctor, and waiting for my ADHD & ASD assessments, but after attending ADHD self-help groups for a year, listening to experts like Dr. Barkley on youtube and reading as much as I can, I can confirm that what @opalcolon4902 wrote matches what I believe to have learned. Please let me explain and expand. First of all, there seems to be no reliable way at this point to predict what type of medication and what dosage will work for someone. It is highly individual, and unlike many other medications, also not predictable from body weight or age. It rather seems to depend on how quickly the person’s body metabolizes the medication (for example in the liver), and on the sensitivities of various receptors for neurotransmitters in the brain (or elsewhere). And maybe there are other factors as well. The body may also adjust to the medication, which is why some side effects may improve after a few days or a week. I heard several times that low doses of a medication are tried first, to see if that medication has any intolerable side effects. That means, the first dosages can easily be too low to show any effects, positive or negative. If there are no side effects, the dosage can be increased. Basically, the doctor tries to increase the dosage until positive effects reach their peak, but stops when intolerable side effects appear. Depending on the side effects, the doctor and patient may also continue to try for a week or so to see if these side effects become tolerable or even go away, after the body adjusts to them. If this doesn’t happen, and there was no “good” lower dosage found before, then this type of medication is abandoned and another type of medication can be tried. Unfortunately, despite trying, research does not seem to have found any way to predict the right ADHD medication and dosage. So far, this try-out method seems to be the only way that leads to useable results. But it also seems to be relatively safe, because small dosages are tried first, and the trial of a type of medication is stopped when intolerable side effects persist, or cannot be tolerated from the outset. All the best for your progress, and fingers crossed for you and your kid. 🤞

Hey, speaking from personal experience and from my discussions with my own doctors during the diagnostic and dosing process - weight etc does not really impact the therapeutic dose necessary, it is much more related to the persons metabolism and brain. My doctor said she had petite female patients on very high doses for effective treatment, and big muscular guys on a very low dose that was just as effective. Stimulants like methylphenidate work immediately and don’t stay in the system over extended use. At 10, you should be doing your best to control the environment for your kid to help them focus, but god I wish I was on meds when I was young. It impacts so much - for example, if I was medicated at school I wouldn’t feel like such a failure when work got hard - why could all my friends sit down and study and get on with it but I couldn’t? What was wrong with me? Why am I so lazy? It wasn’t till university I actually had the push to get diagnosed since the work was so much harder and the school structure was gone. I did not want to fail my degree. I never tried guanfacine or atomoxatine (I think those are the non stimulan meds) so can’t speak to those, but stimulants gave me such freedom. I could go get groceries when I wanted, I could study and get up when I wanted, the huge inertia for tasks was gone. Sure I still had to choose, but now I actually got to choose to do what I wanted.

@@sheppycider123 thank you for the insights this is the type of thing I see happening in my son. His brain is morphing to the perception of failure and the peer rejection. I'm doing everything I can to make his environment positive less stressful and I'm having lots of conversations with him about his self-esteem. I'm going to take all the information I have as his father from the schools to the doctor and hopefully they can get him on a medication plan that frees him as you describe so well.

I don't think apps can help treat ADHD, but I'm sure that for some people they help with organization. I find it helpful to use the reminder function on my phone that will remind me to do things at specific times of day. Some prompts I have for it: - remind me on the 28th and the 30th of every month to buy a bus pass for the upcoming month. - remind me every night at 11pm to charge my phone and to set my alarm for the following morning if needed. - if I need to study, I have an app that will send me an update twice an hour with "did you get distracted" to remind me to get back on task - remind me at 10am - record that i took my medication if i did, or take it now if I haven't already. - a reminder on the first of every month to pay rent It's not complicated, or a system, just failsafes. It takes advantage of the fact that I'm on my phone a lot. I do not think a digital calendar would help me, because sometimes I forget to add things to it. Physical works better. If I could find a way to export my work schedule from Verint to google calendars, maybe I'd give it another shot. But digital reminders that I can set up once and have for the duration of my life? That feels worth it. I want to automate everything I can to outsource working memory. The way I see organization or productivity apps - use what works for you and throw away what doesn't.

That’s it it’s the working memory that isn’t great once information like general knowledge is stored in long term memory it’s there for keeps until you have to move it back into working memory to access it. Other issues are time blindness and instructions have to be written not verbal as auditory channel doesn’t work for those but it will for music, dance,drama,and musical trivia. It must use a different part of the brain.

@@jamiejohnson5748for me setting alarms helps for certain things but I find a physical calendar up on my wall that I write everything on far superior

If you have adhd and are a gamer your better to play something that interests you and doesn’t contain any micro transactions it used to be so much easier years ago I’m 42 and have been a gamer for 37 years

😂 lol yeah I always bitch at whales because my neanderthal brain just doesn't wanna understand that these people paid for being so uber powerful I consider myself immune against Microtransaction though, maybe I am just to intelligent to fall for them but I hate RNG in games in general because I want to earn my rewards in a legit way and not just a lottery happens to say so - it's exactly this lack of control and the absurd prices in many games that keeps me away from them.

The other day I was talking to my mother about gaming (I’m 33, been doing it basically since I remember myself so lets say for 30 years), and realised how LUCKY I was to come across them from an early age and that video games were the “stimulating” behaviour that got “attached” to my adhd, because we tend to go for riskier behaviour and substance abuse, I saw it as video games being my susbtance, and thanks to them I learnt A LOT about history, became fluent in English (my second language), learnt resource management and strategy, socialised in multiplayer games, dabbled in mapping and 3d modelling, learnt all I know about computers. It wasn’t always easy and specially towards my mid-late 20s I stigmatised and self blamed myself for my gaming, all the while being blind to the fact I was successful in life (law degree, self employed). Only at 31 when I joined a startups and started working from home did I get the space to investigate why I had so much trouble working. Got diagnosed this year at 33, started medication and meditation (I like fixed point gazing), played spiderman and a round of Dota yesterday, play at most 1h every other day, dont crave gaming AND LOVE LIFE. I grew up in a place with easy access to drugs. Imagine I never played video games and tried drugs, where would I be now?

I would say an app such as the Endeavor game is unlikely to help with what is a performance not a skill or knowledge disorder. Some apps, such as time management ones, may help cope with that aspect of ADHD but don’t treat it. Game apps claim to treat it but the evidence is not very convincing if there is any at all.

What about apps that are based on a token economy - defining tasks of the day, receive tokens for it and redeem them for the fun parts of the day. @@russellbarkleyphd2023

I was a somewhat aggressive child, it had two reasons: I was easily angered (emotional dysregulation) and easily bored. What might help is counterintuitive but a combat sport might be good. You use a lot of energy, you learn what violence does to people after getting your ass beat by a stronger opponent and you learn respect, have a routine etc etc. Jiu Jitsu, kickboxing or wrestling might be a good place to start. Girls can fight, too! Good luck!

I take my meds the second I wake up, and then do something physical for an hour(cook, clean, walk the dog,, drive to work, etc,). That’s usually about the time it takes for the meds to “kick in” and then I can do more cognitive work. And I give myself grace that that is just how my body/brain works and I try not to feel guilty about it. Doesn’t always work out the way I planned, but more often than not and I try hard to remind myself that, by evidence of past performance, this level of ritual is working for me. Hope that give you some ideas.

@@scottseward3756 Do you use concerta? I ask because my pharmacy suggest to have breakfast before take concerta.

@@scottseward3756 You can actually do stuff before the meds kick in? That's pretty amazing, I think. There's no way you be catching me doing anything except laying around as I wait for some motivation to move when the meds become active. I might walk my dog. But only because it's a non-negotiable item. Plus, I tend to wake up early, which I hate, and can't fall back to sleep. I try, give up, make my coffee and take meds, wait for the start button to come on.

What games should do is help develop thinking and acting patterns rather than fix symptoms

@@Linguistiecognitive behavioural therapy works too. If you understand how you think and to try and change negative and unhelpful patterns. I do this every 3 weeks