Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Identified by Neuropsychological Testing

Abstract

The authors used neuropsychological tests to assess and classify adult patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and controls. Four memory tests correctly classified 81% of subjects. The memory tests were: the auditory Consonant trigram test, the Benton Visual Retention test, the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning test, and the modified Diagnosticum für Cerebralschädigung. The patients scored lower than controls also in other tests sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction. The results underpin the importance of neuropsychological testing in adult ADD, but also support notions of a working-memory deficit linked to a dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex in these patients.

Keywords:

• ADHD
• adult
• dual task capacity
• memory
• prefrontal cortex
• working memory