Sun. Oct 13, 2019 2:50 PM - 4:30 PM Room 16 (Heian)

Organizer / Chair: Duk-In JON (Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Korea), Discussant: ‌Hyung-Mo SUNG (Department of Psychiatry, CHA University, Korea)

For many years, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD) has been thought to be a mental disorder that diagnosed in child or adolesecent period. ADHD in childhood can persist into adulthood in at least 30 percent of patients and some researches present a possiblity of 'late onset or adut onset ADHD'. According to most recent data from WHO, the global prevalece rate of ADHD in adult is about 3~4%. The rate of comorbidity in adult ADHD is estimated to be up to 85%, such comord illnesses include bipolar disorder, substance mood disorder, anxiety disorder etc. These mean that ADHD could be a lifelong disorder. These means that not only the symptoms and impairments of ADHD could affect the adult population, but functional impairments could be worse than the younger population. So proper diagnosis and treatment is very important, especially in adults, and can improve their daily functioning. As a result, interests in adult ADHD has rapidly increased and updated clinical practice has emerged across the world. Despite this progress, most countires in asia have little data from basic researches, including epidemiologic studies, clinical research etc. Most of all researches and data have been coming from a few eastern developed countries and proper diagnostic, and treatment services are often restricted or unavailable in many other regions of the world, including most asian countries. We don't know how many asian people suffer from adult ADHD. We don't know which medications or treatment could be more effective in asian people. We just know that 'we don't know'.
Clinical and social interests in adult ADHD have been growing rapidly in Korea since last 2years. Academic and clinical meeatings, researches have been continuing by Korean College of Neuropsychopharmacology(KCNP) and Korean Society for Affective Disorder(KSAD). In this symposium, we will present a status of adult ADHD and related recent clinical researches in Korea. We expect that clinical or academical interests of asian psychiatrists will grow with our session. We also hope that our presentation could be a trigger for expansion of adult ADHD in each asian countries.