A Life with ADHD: Neuropsychological Profile of Elderly Patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

EZEQUIEL GLEICHGERRCHT; TERESA TORRALVA; ALICIA LISCHINSKY; MARÍA ROCA; FACUNDO MANES

Buenos Aires

Encuentro; Join Mid-Year Meeting; 2008

The International Neuropsychological Society, Sociedad de Neuropsicología de Argentina

Objective: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a lifespan disorder sometimes overlooked or misdiagnosed in early childhood. These undiagnosed patients go undetected until the get older and complain of cognitive deficits. However, this condition is neglected in the differential diagnosis in memory clinics. Our study aimed at characterizing the way in wich cognitive domains envolve with a long history of ADHD, in a population of senior ADHD patients. Participants and Methods: a complete neuropsychological battery was administered to a group of older subjects with recent ADHD diagnosis (age > 58 years; oADHD; n=10), a control group matched by age and gender (CTR; n=10), and a group of younger ADHD patients (age < 20 years; y ADHD; n=10). Results: groups were effectively distinguished by their age, with no significant differences found between their years of education, ensuring highly comparable results. Performance on the Trail A test, wich measures sustained attention, differed significantly between o ADHD and y ADHD, but neither group performed significantly worse than CTR. Both groups exhibited significantly different scores than CTR on the Letters & Numbers test, wich involves a strong executive component, but the clinical groups did not differ between themselves. Conclusions: attention deficits in older ADHD are greater than those observed in younger ADHD patients, while executive functions in both older and younger ADHD patients are impaired compared to controls. Further studies are needed to characterize elderly patients with ADHD.