Important: ADHD is a recognised neurodevelopmental condition requiring proper assessment and, for many people, medication. Nothing on this page is a substitute for diagnosis by a qualified clinician. Practitioners listed here work alongside conventional ADHD care, not instead of it.
What is ADHD?
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting attention, impulse control and executive function. It is estimated to affect around 5% of children and about 2.5% of adults, though adult diagnosis rates have risen sharply as recognition has improved.
Adults often present differently to children. Rather than visible hyperactivity, the picture is more likely to be difficulty starting tasks, time blindness, working memory problems, emotional dysregulation, and years of compensating without knowing why things felt harder than they appeared to be for everyone else.
On medication: Stimulant medication is the best-evidenced treatment for ADHD and works well for many people. Practitioners listed here include prescribers who manage medication as part of a broader plan, and who can support people wanting to review or adjust an existing regimen.
Common signs in adults
- Difficulty starting tasks, particularly ones that are important but not urgent
- Time blindness and chronic underestimation of how long things take
- Working memory problems, losing the thread mid-sentence or mid-task
- Emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitivity
- Hyperfocus on engaging work, to the exclusion of everything else
- Sleep difficulty, particularly a racing mind at night
- Restlessness that is internal rather than visible
- A long history of underperforming relative to apparent ability
How a whole-person approach adds to ADHD care
ADHD is not caused by diet or lifestyle, and no practitioner should tell you otherwise. What this approach adds is attention to the factors that make ADHD symptoms measurably harder to manage, and which frequently go unexamined in a short appointment focused on prescribing.
What practitioners commonly investigate
- Sleep. Disruption is very common in ADHD and worsens attention, impulse control and mood. Untreated sleep apnoea can mimic or compound ADHD symptoms.
- Iron and ferritin. Low ferritin has been associated with ADHD symptom severity in a number of studies, and is straightforward to test and correct where genuinely deficient.
- Thyroid function. Both under and overactive thyroid can produce attention and mood symptoms that overlap with ADHD.
- Blood sugar stability. Large swings affect concentration and irritability in anyone, and can make an ADHD day noticeably worse.
- Omega-3 status. Supplementation has shown modest benefit in some trials. Smaller than medication, but not nothing.
- Co-occurring anxiety and depression. Very common alongside ADHD, and treating one without the other tends to disappoint.
- Medication review. Dose, timing, formulation and the knock-on effects on sleep and appetite all matter, and are often under-optimised.
What the evidence supports: stimulant medication and behavioural strategies have the strongest evidence base in ADHD. Correcting a nutrient deficiency helps where one genuinely exists. Be cautious of any practitioner who promises to resolve ADHD through diet or supplements alone, or who discourages medication without a clinical reason.
What to look for in a practitioner
- Willing to work with medication, not against it
- Tests before treating rather than supplementing on assumption
- Screens for co-occurring conditions, particularly anxiety, depression and sleep disorders
- Realistic about what they can change and clear about what they cannot
- Appropriately licensed to diagnose or prescribe, if that is what you need
