Over her life, Tanya Murphy had become accustomed to hiding her depression. In the Christian social circles in Georgia where she raised her three children, this was the rule — not the exception, she said.“ God forbid you have a mental health issue,” said Ms. Murphy, 56, who now lives in Arlington, Va. “And if you do? Girl, all you have to do is fast and pray.”
But by the time she reached her late 40s, she knew she couldn’t mask her problems any longer.
Ms. Murphy had developed anxiety and started having thoughts of ending her life. She knew she was smart but she didn’t feel that way. Her difficulty focusing — as a child, her teachers called her a daydreamer — had translated into spending thousands of dollars on entrepreneurial projects that she later lost interest in and abandoned.
After researching her symptoms online, Ms. Murphy realized that she might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., a neurodevelopmental disorder that typically involves inattention, disorganization, hyperactivity and impulsivity.
Over the last 20 years, clinicians have increasingly recognized that A.D.H.D. symptoms, which begin in childhood, can linger into adulthood, and that some groups — like women and people of color — are more likely to be underdiagnosed early in life. Now, with the rise of telemedicine, increased awareness of A.D.H.D. and changing attitudes about mental health treatment, new A.D.H.D. diagnoses are surging among older Americans.
An analysis by Truveta, a health care data and analytics company, shows that the rate of first-time A.D.H.D. diagnoses has been on the rise since 2021, but the increase has occurred only among people 30 and older. From January 2021 to October 2024, the rate of first-time diagnoses rose about 61 percent among those ages 30 to 44 and 64 percent among those ages 45 to 64.
Over the last 20 years, clinicians have increasingly recognized that A.D.H.D. symptoms, which begin in childhood, can linger into adulthood, and that some groups — like women and people of color — are more likely to be underdiagnosed early in life.
As a result, about 31 percent of first-time diagnoses are now among people ages 30 to 44, the largest proportion of any age group. (In 2018, younger adults took the top spot.)
The analysis, which was done at the request of The New York Times, drew on Truveta’s database of 30 health systems, which included more than one million people who had received first-time A.D.H.D. diagnoses.
A survey conducted in August by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center found that 25 percent of adults believed they had undiagnosed A.D.H.D. But among U.S. adults, the disorder is thought to occur in only 6 percent of the population. Experts believe that the array of social media videos about the disorder is partly to blame for the increase in self-diagnosis.
“All these people who have been walking around, never diagnosed before, are now saying, ‘Wow, these symptoms resonate with me,’” said Dr. David W. Goodman, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
This is especially true of women. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 61 percent of women with A.D.H.D. are diagnosed with the disorder in adulthood compared with 40 percent of men. Research also suggests that A.D.H.D. symptoms can worsen or even appear for the first time around menopause.
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Outside stressors, such as the pandemic, may have added gasoline to the fire for people with “long-simmering difficulties,” said Russell Ramsay, a psychologist who treats adult A.D.H.D.
The lack of U.S. clinical guidelines for diagnosing A.D.H.D. in adults means that there isn’t a consistent way that everyone goes about it.
Much of the surge in new diagnoses is “legit,” said Stephen P. Hinshaw, a professor of psychology and an expert in A.D.H.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. But, he added, the pull of social media and the “still-too-easy diagnoses” available online “with a few self-report questions and no corroboration” are an unfortunate flip side.
Excerpted from “A.D.H.D. Diagnoses Are Surging Among Older Americans” in The New York Times. Read the full article online.
Source: The New York Times | A.D.H.D. Diagnoses Are Surging Among Older Americans, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/well/mind/adhd-diagnosis-older-middle-age.html | © 2025 The New York Times Company
