Do you have Question?
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GENERAL QUESTIONS
The assessment uses a tool that is considered the gold standard of testing for ADHD. It takes up to two hours and is a series of answering questions about your experiences as an adult and as a younger child. An example question might be: How often do you leave the house and then need to return, because you have forgotten something?
A score is then created from the answers you provide, and certain answers give the practitioner an idea of how your symptoms might go on to affect your adult life.
Medication for ADHD is a good option if the symptoms you are experiencing are debilitating for you, or severe enough to impact your daily life. Many studies have been carried out to suggest that taking medication at the right time can limit the loss or damage caused to your education, work life or your social life.
However, medication is not the only tool in the box and there are times when medication may not be suitable or may no longer work. It is important to treat the dysfunction of ADHD in conjunction with medicine. Using medicine alone is somewhat of a quick fix, it works pretty much instantly, but how are you going to back this up three years down the line?
The Fiona Project recognises the wonderful role that medication can play in the right setting and when it is well monitored but there needs to be a Plan B. This is how the Fiona Project is different, we address Plan B from day one and allow you to practice these new skills, well before your medication journey ends.
The Fiona Project believes in the philosophy that ‘pills don’t make skills’ and if we are a service then we need to act to get the best long term results.
Once you have paid for your assessment you do not need to pay for any anything else, follow up appointments are included.
If you are having medicine as your chosen treatment, you will incur charges from the pharmacy. This is outside of Fiona Project control and is paid direct to the pharmacy itself.
Yes, each assessment will be an opportunity to ask questions, so have them ready, your clinician will be happy to discuss them with you.
No, good and thorough assessment will rule this out, for example, if a patient has anxiety and depression, we will question these symptoms by way of deeper questioning and analysis. Anxiety is a feature of ADHD in some groups, but anxiety without the presence of triggers or certain behaviours make it quite different from ADHD.
Medication is highly effective at treating the majority of ADHD symptoms when started at the right time and at the right dose, often referred to as optimisation. Treatment benefits are usually quite instant, and this helps us to know we are treating effectively. Titration and stability is achieved by taking the right dose and right medication, that, in turn, brings about the maximum improvement by reversing impairment. Sometimes other therapies are used to treat longstanding learned patterns of behaviour that relate to behavioural symptoms.
This is an important concern for many people faced with taking ADHD medication. So, let’s look at the facts. ADHD medication is not addictive, it is metabolised by the body within 12 hours. There is often an improvement and the feeling of being more in control and having better work or social outcomes can easily become addictive. The medication works by improving the availability of dopamine across the synaptic gap. Dopamine is a chemical messenger that your body produces naturally, but it cannot get to the right place in individuals with ADHD. So, medication moves your own dopamine across the gap.
Missing a dose of your medication will not cause withdrawal symptoms, your brain is not addicted to it, but you will have a return of your previous symptoms or a return of dopamine not being in the right place to assist your thinking and decision making.
Some people have a deficit that responds well to treatment our Executive Function Skills Programme, and then no longer require the medication to help them. Some young adults transitioning from late teens to early adulthood stop their treatment. This can be due to lack of support in this transitionary period. It is always best to speak to your clinician or General Practitioner about stopping medication and there should be a period of either monitoring or self-report for post treatment experiences.
Once diagnosed with ADHD, then the answer is yes, the more important question is, will my ADHD always affect my day-to-day life? and to that we would say no. The effort put into early therapy contributes to a less disruptive adult ADHD life path. The earlier that we work together to recognise either trigger points or situations that Executive Function Skills can help with, then the easier the ADHD life path becomes for individuals.
There is great improvement and testing for ADHD, wet brain scanning or scanning live individuals has improved the diagnosis process. ADHD may not have been seen in girls and young women, in previous measures or young boys with inattention only may have been labelled as non-academic or disinterested. Hyperactivity as a predominant symptom may have been called something else. What we now know about ADHD is that certain parts of the brain can be seen to less effective at accessing dopamine, and so therefore do not function as well, this can be seen on a scan when asking the individual to perform a mental task. ADHD is now more easily tested with gold standard diagnostic testing, and this assists clinicians to diagnose those who’s symptoms are well masked.
ADHD is a spectrum disorder, many other conditions are on this spectrum, Autism, ADHD and Aspergers are some. A newer diagnosis emerging is SCT – Sluggish Cognitive Tempo – This ungainly named diagnosis is for a poor functioning prefrontal cortex that is measurable but does not go on to cause the same symptoms of ADHD. This new SCT is not yet being diagnosed – but demonstrates the advances in testing brain functioning. Spectrum disorders are highly heritable, but they do not necessarily mirror from one generation to the next. You may have a parent with a spectrum disorder and your disorder presents as ADHD rather than being the same as theirs.
Starting treatment for ADHD is a private and individual process, it is up to you if you tell your colleagues or family members. However, when ADHD medication is working well and The Executive Function Skills Programme is working well, it will cause you to behave in a different way. This usually means that those who know you well are usually the first to notice.
QUESTIONS ABOUT US
We are Fiona – Finding Incidences of Non-Diagnosed ADHD and Autism, Fiona for short. We are a small, niche service that does ADHD care differently. We believe that diagnosis is a big deal and that being diagnosed is the start of the journey and not the end point. That’s why we do things differently at The Fiona Project.
We treat w with ADHD medication when it is suitable – medication is started and monitored. We provide a contact number direct to your clinician and a dedicated email address. So there is always a same day point of contact for you or any other clinician you are working with.
This takes a week or so to settle into medication, once you are feeling stabilised, we start our programme of 3 weekly reviews and working on our Executive Function Skills Programme and include the areas of your life that need urgent attention. For example, school, homeworking, university projects or being able to perform at work.
This report (valid throughout the UK) helps you to see what we are working towards, and it helps your General Practitioner to know why we are treating you and what improvements we are aiming for. We only request shared care with your General Practitioner when we have the clinical evidence to demonstrate that your treatment and programme are working for you. This report is ideal for schools, university, or employers.
We meet every three weeks, if you need us before then, you can call us directly, but we keep your scheduled appointment too. We are a small service; we keep our patient register small so that we can offer an excellent personal service that we are proud of and we are able to demonstrate improvement in everyone we treat.
We support you as a patient with ADHD for up to one year, at no extra cost to you. We do not charge you for our support package, your appointments every three weeks do not cost you any extra. Calls made to the clinic and clinic time is not charged as an extra. Once you are a patient at The Fiona Project - we do not charge you again, for anything, there are no hidden or extra charges.
We check your vital health information at each follow up appointment, including your blood pressure, pulse, weight, and any symptoms you may have. After that we spend up to half an hour coaching and practising any executive function deficits that affect you day to day life. Each appointment we follow up, we check in and see your progress through your journal of self-reporting.
We are the only service treating ADHD as a two-phase process concurrently, we aim to develop as much improvement as possible, early in your treatment, and we envisage a time when medication may not be necessary. We see medication as a way to control your symptoms initially, but how can you become the best you? We believe this is through working together to gain improvement through our Executive Function Skills Programme.
Exclusive to The Fiona Project is our NEW Buddy Programme. This is taken from the successful American Schools Project. We buddy-up school age children or adults with similar symptoms – in a programme that is private contact between you and your Buddy. This results in contact once a month to discuss scenarios, or problems that are unique to your role, lifestyle, or age group. This Buddy System is highly effective in the sharing of ideas, experiences and much more. Children in the Buddy System report having better social interaction at school and the buddy system contributes to lessen the recent studied feeling of loneliness and isolation that having a neurodiverse diagnosis can bring. We are really excited about the benefits of The Buddy Programme.
We are a small, niche, patient led service that is serious about achieving life changing results, that together we can measure. We do not over charge and we know that treatment is a journey with bumps along the way, we do not charge for missed appointments, extra prescriptions, extra consultations or your very important reviews and ongoing treatment. We are supportive of your goals and work hard to maintain a patient – practitioner relationship.
Sometimes there are issues to work through as an adult or as a family, and not addressing these issues can cause a hurdle in treatment progress. We have an inhouse service for counselling and psychotherapy that is either individual or family based.
Why is a child assessment slightly more expensive?
MYTH BUSTING
There is some evidence to suggest that trace element deficit in vitamins can contribute to ADHD/Autism symptoms – these are Magnesium and B Vitamins, However, we recommend a good Multi Vitamin taken daily for adults and children is always helpful. Remember, when buying vitamins – look to see that the RDA (recommended daily allowance) is matched by what is present in the daily dose of tablet, otherwise it is a waste of money. Both appear as columns on the back of the bottle or leaflet. RDA should match each dose or be very close to it. This is true of good quality Multi Vitamins but untrue in some cheaper non- brands, so it is always good to check it out.
The answer would be yes, but some Neurodiverse diagnosed individuals cannot always accommodate this, it is normal for some children and adults to eat a very limited diet, limited by food colours, textures or other factors. Expecting people to change their diet whilst commencing treatment, is not something we would want to do.
Yes, this can happen in a few different ways, some medications contribute to a loss of appetite, while the medication is active. Taken medication can make people become more active as their life becomes more successful, they may attend more things socially or just may be more active, and some people may be binge eating before medication starts and this is then treated by medication and weight loss occurs. This is why it is important to measure and review weight loss at each appointment. Weight loss is welcomed in some and is also good for health and fitness and in others it needs to be monitored more closely. If someone with ADHD and is on a low weight percentile, extra dietary advice is available to counteract the effect of unwanted weight loss.