I am VERY glad I went through this evaluation. I do meet the criteria for ADD. We did talk about the meds available, although I'm not interested in pursuing that right now.
The dr. is an ADD test specialist, recommended by my C.
The dr. told me that research shows that attention deficits are caused either by diminished dopamine in the frontal lobe of the brain or by the dopamine receptor closing too quickly. Dopamine enhances attention. Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta work by keeping the dopamine receptors open longer than they would be otherwise.
This dopamine problem causes deficiencies in working memory, "the ability to hold several facts or thoughts in memory temporarily while solving a problem or performing a task." I read an example online of someone being lost, stopping at a gas station, asking for directions and then listening to 3 or 4 sentences describing how to get to a destination. This is exactly what throws me. This is why cac and I have gotten into arguments when he is trying to explain, verbally, something technical to me. During one part of the test the dr. read a short paragraph consisting of 4 or 5 sentences. At the end he asked me to recall the paragraph. I was only able to recall part of the first sentence and a couple more key words. We repeated this process 5 times. This is the kind of thing that has plagued me and made me feel stupid over the years.
I also found out that I have deficiencies in information retrieval, which I knew, and in particular with free recall, where no clues are given to assist information retrieval. An example of this was when I was asked to recite as many words as I could that start with the letter F. This type of exercise is quite difficult for me, and frustrating too. So many times I have started to recall for cac something I had read and I can only remember some key words but nothing substantive and I get frustrated and give up. Often I pull out the article and read word for word the information I wanted to tell him. The web is invaluable to me! It helped me write this post.
I am very happy with my IQ score. Shocked, actually.
I will receive a detailed report from the doctor in a couple of weeks.
I feel a lot better about myself after going through this process. I finally have some answers!
