ADHD - An Illustrated historical overview

The hyperkinetic child – Moving forward by looking back 215 years ago, the Scottish physician Alexander Crichton presented cases of chil- dren who exhibited attention deficits, hallmarks of a disorder today known as attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), one of the most common child- hood onset psychological problems. Since that time there has been a fascinating history of clinical and basic research on ADHD symptomatology: research into its clinical features and subtypes, dis- order-specific aspects of social interaction, the course from childhood to adult- hood and gender differences, non-genetic and genetic etiologies, the associa- tion with brain structure and cerebral functioning, the relevance of neurotrans- mitter systems, research concerning developmental comorbidity and quality of life and investigations of treatment approaches, including psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological research. In this illustrated brochure, we have compiled some chapters which briefly sum- marize the main steps of this fascinating history on ADHD-associated research. We have put a special focus on topics with rich graphical material and are there- fore especially indebted to the Struwwelpeter-Museum , the Emma Pendleton Bradley Hospital and the Firmenarchiv Novartis AG for providing photos and il- lustrations from their vast archives. We also thank Paul Foley for contributing texts and translations, Aribert Roth- enberger for his approval to include photos and pictures in the Kramer/Pollnow chapter, Siebke Melfsen and Susanne Walitza for their article on Heinrich Hoff- mann, Regina Taurines for her contribution on developmental comorbidity and Ludger Tebartz van Elst and Marcel Romanos for contributing graphical material to the chapter on neuroimaging. We hope you enjoy this history! Andreas Warnke and Christian Riederer, May 2013. The authors can be reached at criederer@email.de, and welcome suggestions and ideas!