INVESTIGADORES
MANES Facundo Francisco
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Late-Life Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A neglected condition in a Memory Clinic
Autor/es:
EZEQUIEL GLEICHGERRCHT; TERESA TORRALVA; ALICIA LISCHINSKY; MARÍA ROCA; FACUNDO MANES
Lugar:
Toronto
Reunión:
Encuentro; 62nd AAN 2010 Annual Meeting; 2010
Institución organizadora:
American Academy of Neurology
Resumen:
OBJECTIVE: To characterize the way in which cognitive domains evolve with a long history of ADHD, in a population of senior ADHD patients. BACKGROUND: A subgroup of individuals with complaints of memory failures, yet having no Mild Cognitive Impairment, was detected during everyday clinical practice. ADHD is a lifespan disorder sometimes overlooked or misdiagnosed in early childhood. Some of these undiagnosed ADHD patients go undetected until they get older and begin to complain of cognitive deficits. However, this condition is neglected in the differential diagnosis in memory clinics. DESIGN/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; yADHD; 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, which measures sustained attention, differed significantly between oADHD and yADHD (p < .05), but neither group performed significantly worse than CTR. Both groups exhibited significantly different scores (both p < .05) than CTR on the Letters & Numbers test, which involves a strong executive component, but the clinical groups did not differ between themselves. CONCLUSIONS/RELEVANCE: 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. Ageing may increase the executive deficits in ADHD patients. Further studies are needed to characterize elderly patients with ADHD.
