Thursday 6 October 2022 04:31 PM Adrian Chiles admits he's had a rethink on the efficiency of ADHD treatment trends now
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Adrian Chiles says he reevaluated his beliefs regarding the efficiency of professional ADHD care after discovering some sufferers face a desperate five year wait for treatment.
The TV presenter was diagnosed with the condition in 2019, having already spent thousands of pounds on private healthcare and psychiatric treatment after being unable to 'focus on anything' for more than 15 seconds.
But his belief that ADHD, a behavioral disorder that typically begins in childhood and is defined by a short attention span and poor impulse control, was easily treated and widely diagnosed was tested during a recent meeting with a fellow sufferer.
Rethink: Adrian Chiles says he reevaluated his beliefs regarding the efficiency of professional ADHD care after discovering some sufferers face a desperate five year wait for treatment
Writing for The Guardian, Chiles, 55, says he was given a reality check while discussing the disorder with Henry Shelford ahead of the Global ADHD Conference, which begins on October 6.
He recalled: 'I had long been holding a couple of opinions that, thanks to him, I don’t hold any more. Firstly, I had developed a sense that, from being wildly under-diagnosed, ADHD had now gone the other way and was being diagnosed and treated left, right and centre.
'I was wrong – wrong because I had been seeing it through the prism of my own experience: essentially, that I had been able to pay to see a specialist. For everyone else, Shelford made clear, it’s a very long wait.