TEENS at the WHEEL with ADHD

Arlington resident Alison O’Brien knows she must take her medication every day to keep the symptoms of attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder, or ADHD, at bay.

One day three years ago, the then-16-year-old didn’t, and it led to a head-on collision.

ADHD is a neurobehavioral disorder in which those afflicted show frequent inattention or behave impulsively. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 4.4 million children ages 4 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Symptoms may include fidgeting, excessive talking and an inability to follow instructions or complete tasks.

Driving requires concentration, something ADHD can diminish.

Miss O’Brien, 19 and a sophomore at Marymount University, says she was diagnosed with ADHD at about 6 years of age.

“My parents had known, kind of, that I had something wrong with me. It was pretty obvious. They were trying to not believe what was really there,” she says.

Years later, when she neared driving age, her parents made her watch educational videos about safe driving.

But one fateful drive sans medication taught her an indelible lesson.

“I started to feel a little woozy,” she says, looking back at how she felt before the accident. No one was seriously hurt in the accident, but Miss O’Brien took a court-ordered driver’s education course afterward, along with her father, who was there for support. She now keeps extra medication in her car just in case, although lethargy isn’t a typical concern for ADHD teens behind the wheel.

One Virginia-based researcher has been studying ADHD and teen drivers for years in a flurry of projects.

Daniel Cox, professor with the University of Virginia’s Department of Psychiatry, says his studies have shown both the effect ADHD has on teen drivers and the role medication can play in keeping them safer.

“Kids are dying each and every day in car accidents,” Mr. Cox says, and a portion of them have ADHD.

Mr. Cox’s studies typically use a driving-simulator program. In his initial study, Mr. Cox examined how teens concentrated on driving challenges and how various medications affected their performance. Later work uncovered that slower-acting medications better served teen ADHD drivers, for the most part, than faster-acting pills.

Even ADHD teens who took several doses of Ritalin, a fast-acting, fast-metabolizing medication, couldn’t match the driving skills shown by those who took a longer-acting pill such as Concerta.

In the latter study, tests were conducted at 2, 5, 8 and 11 p.m.

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