Melchior Adam Wiekard was a German physician who, in 1775, wrote a medical text book in which five and a half pages in the third chapter are devoted to an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) like illness. This appears to be the first record of such a disorder, predating Still by more than a hundred and twenty years. Wiekard describes inattentiveness as more common in children and women, more common in the young than the old, more common in someone who is happy than in someone who is sad, and inattentiveness was more common in the French than in the English. His suggestions for treatment ranged from treatment sour milk, steel powder, and cold baths to being alone in a quiet room and horseback riding or gymnastics. We know two suggestions
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Tregold, a British physician, writer, and expert on mental disorders, studied the results of the 1918 influenza epidemic. There he found that many who had recovered from encephalitis lethargica, a virus now thought to be associated with the flu virus but a separate virus altogether, suffered brain damage. Those survivors presented ADHD-like symptoms.
Children often became “hyperactive, distractible, irritable, antisocial, destructive, unruly, and unmanageable in school. They frequently disturbed the whole class and were regarded as quarrelsome and impulsive, often leaving the school building during class time without permission”, (Ross and Ross 1976, p. 15 cited by Lange, K., Reichl, S., Lange K., Tucha, L., Tucha, O., 2010)
If, however, these children were evaluated today based on current ADHD criteria they would not be found to have the disorder. One very important thing that Tregold did do was open the door for study and an eventual understanding of hyperactivity in children.
The Many Names and Faces of a …show more content…
In the early 1960’s, in order to remove itself further away from the inclusiveness of brain damage, the disease was again renamed, this time ‘minimal brain dysfunction’, which was inclusive of many disorders including: language disorders, learning disabilities, and dyslexia as well as hyperactivity. The 1960’s produced other monikers for the disease including ‘hyperactive child syndrome’ which, in the late 1960’s was replaced with ‘hyperkinetic reaction of childhood’. During the 1970’s it was the emphasis on the hyperactive component of the disease was questioned. It seemed, at that time, to be only a small part of the disorder and not the main focus, it was argued that the name completely dismissed the importance of the attention aspect of the disease. And then, ‘Attention Deficit Disorder’ was included in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III, American Psychiatric Association, 1980), “with the publication of DSM-III in 1980, the American Psychiatric Association renamed the disorder ‘Attention Deficit Disorder
Tregold, a British physician, writer, and expert on mental disorders, studied the results of the 1918 influenza epidemic. There he found that many who had recovered from encephalitis lethargica, a virus now thought to be associated with the flu virus but a separate virus altogether, suffered brain damage. Those survivors presented ADHD-like symptoms.
Children often became “hyperactive, distractible, irritable, antisocial, destructive, unruly, and unmanageable in school. They frequently disturbed the whole class and were regarded as quarrelsome and impulsive, often leaving the school building during class time without permission”, (Ross and Ross 1976, p. 15 cited by Lange, K., Reichl, S., Lange K., Tucha, L., Tucha, O., 2010)
If, however, these children were evaluated today based on current ADHD criteria they would not be found to have the disorder. One very important thing that Tregold did do was open the door for study and an eventual understanding of hyperactivity in children.
The Many Names and Faces of a …show more content…
In the early 1960’s, in order to remove itself further away from the inclusiveness of brain damage, the disease was again renamed, this time ‘minimal brain dysfunction’, which was inclusive of many disorders including: language disorders, learning disabilities, and dyslexia as well as hyperactivity. The 1960’s produced other monikers for the disease including ‘hyperactive child syndrome’ which, in the late 1960’s was replaced with ‘hyperkinetic reaction of childhood’. During the 1970’s it was the emphasis on the hyperactive component of the disease was questioned. It seemed, at that time, to be only a small part of the disorder and not the main focus, it was argued that the name completely dismissed the importance of the attention aspect of the disease. And then, ‘Attention Deficit Disorder’ was included in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III, American Psychiatric Association, 1980), “with the publication of DSM-III in 1980, the American Psychiatric Association renamed the disorder ‘Attention Deficit Disorder