- Up to 16% of school-aged children and 4% of adults have attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, according to international studies.
- In South Africa, the proportion of primary schoolchildren with ADHD who use government health facilities is as low as 1.72%, because the public sector doesn’t have enough of the right health workers to diagnose people.
- In this podcast episode, Mia Malan speaks to psychiatrist Renata Schoeman, who is the co-author of South Africa’s ADHD management guidelines and chairs the special interest ADHD group of the South African Society of Psychiatrists.
- Schoeman says more than 10,000 studies show that the brain, particularly the frontal lobes, of someone with ADHD looks different on scans from that of someone who doesn’t have the condition.
- Eight in 10 people with the condition have a child, parent or sibling with it. Many adults only discover they have ADHD when their children get diagnosed and they recognise the symptoms in themselves.
- Malan asks Schoeman: can you outgrow the condition? Find out.
This story was produced by the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Sign up for the newsletter.
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