If the statistics are trustworthy, they are staggering. The number of adults taking prescription drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has more than doubled in the past few years. Some of them, like Kim Majerowicz, whom I met recently in Baltimore, are glad to hear it.
Attractive, outgoing, and middle-aged, Kim runs her interior design business with energy and good humor. She says that just a few years ago, however, she could barely drag herself out of bed. She often ran late to appointments, lived in chaos, and felt as if she were failing as a parent, as a spouse, and as a person. Then she was diagnosed as ADHD, started taking medication, and everything changed for the better.
Her doctor, David Goodman, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, thinks wider prescribing of drugs might help other people too. He is concerned that as many as seven million adults in America are living with undiagnosed ADHD.
But other medical experts fear that many adults, in a complex and busy world, are watching drug company ads and convincing themselves that the pills used to treat ADHD -- stimulants -- can be used as simple performance enhancers, making them work better, faster, and with less fatigue. They call it drug abuse.
I know there are people who suffer from pronounced psychological conditions who doctors say are undeniably helped by these drugs. But I also know some doctors worry we might be too quickly "running for the shelter of Mother's Little Helper." What do you think?
