Adult ADD Strengths

Went to another Vancouver Blogger Meetup on Wednesday at the Whip. As usual had an interesting time talking with other Vancouver bloggers and twittering Robert Sanzalone who’s over in Japan teaching ESL and doing tech activites.

Jan Karlsbjerg was organized enough list all the bloggers there with links and RSS feeds and a group shot. John Biehler has some photos up too. One thing about hanging around other bloggers is there’s not usually a problem with a finding someone with an opinion on a wide variety of topics, not too much talk about the weather.

I was recently quoted in an article on adult ADD in The Telegram, Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest daily newspaper based in the capital St. John’s. The Telegram’s been around for a while, 128 years. Reporter Tara Mullowney wrote the article and I’m reproducing it in full with permission here. I don’t have any listing of ADD support groups in Newfoundland yet in my list of Canadian ADD support groups by province, (here’s my international ADD suppport group list) so if anyone knows of any there please email me with the details.

Adults deal with ADD
The Telegram (St. John’s)
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Page: A1
Section: Front
Byline: Tara Mullowney
Source: The Telegram

Voice Candy is a voice recorder that you can use as an alarm with your Mac computer. You have different effects, a snooze button, and it wakes your Mac up from sleep. You can email the recording as an mp3, and also put it on an itunes playlist and carry it around on your ipod.

Since we ADDers are more here and now oriented than future oriented, we’re often more fun to be around, but we’re also more likely to forget things like appointments or phone calls. You can use it to remind you of tasks or even to take regular breaks, something that ADDers often forget to do.

Will be at 7pm. Topic will be Nutrition & ADHD. Speaker is Joy Kiddi, a Consulting Dietician. She specializes in addressing nutrional needs of children with ADHD and is completing her Masters of Science degree in Nutrition. Her graduate project is also related to ADHD. See website for details.

Maybe she’ll talk a bit about essential fatty acids and adhd.

One thing that’s not mentioned in the previous ABC 20/20 report about prescription medication errors is the doctors who write out prescription with sloppy, often unreadable handwriting. I’ve actually gone back to one doctor after getting a prescription and get him to verify what he scribbled because I couldn’t understand what he wrote.

I think Doctors should be required to either write prescriptions by printing them off a computer, or some type of portable label making device or use single space printing, NOT cursive writing. Yes I know you’re busy, but your patients shouldn’t have to risk injury or death because you’re not willing to take the time or make the effort to write out our prescriptions legibly.

20/20 did an undercover investigation of pharmacies at America’s big chain stores like Walgreens. Here’s the video. They found that there were errors in filling prescriptions in more than one in five cases. They talked about how

Overworked pharmacist are pushed to fill prescriptions at a fast food pace

How many mistakes are made? No one knows,

because except for 4 states, drugstores are not required to report the mistakes they make. Even in cases of serious injuries or death.

Here’s part of the interview between ABC’s Chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross and Mary Ann Wagner R. Ph, Senior Vice President, Policy and Pharmacy Regulatory Affairs of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores