THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN OSTEOPATHIC ASSOCIATION EVIDENCE-BASED CLINICAL REVIEW

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is char-acterized by core symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity.1 Unlike most other psy-chopathologic conditions, which were originally thought to occur only in adults, ADHD was initially believed to affect only children and adolescents. Sir George Frederic Still, MD, the proclaimed “father of British pediatrics, ” provided the first clinical description of ADHD in a series of 3 lectures given to the Royal College of Physicians in London in 1902.2 From then until the mid-1970s, when Wood et al3 first described ADHD in adults, ADHD was thought to be “psychic acne ” that an individual grew out of over time. In reality, more than 50 % of children with ADHD will carry the disorder into adulthood. The initial lack of recogni-tion that an adult form of ADHD exists can be attributed to the fact that many of the presenting symptoms seen in childre