Mary Rooney, PhD: The Challenges of ADHD During a Pandemic

In many ways technology has made the COVID-19 pandemic easier, especially for students with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Overall, the pandemic offered doctors the opportunity to maintain therapy over the computer in a way that likely wouldn’t be possible even 10 years ago.

And while this can be seen as an overall positive, there are some concerns for ADHD as we move to the next stage of coming out of the pandemic.

Prior to March 2020, many parents set goals of limiting their child’s “screen” time. When the pandemic hit, that basically became impossible as most schooling occurred over the computer.

And the reality is the last 12 months might cause some lasting issues and concerns for ADHD patients.

In this edition of DocTalk, Mary Rooney, PhD, clinical psychologist and chief of the Child and Adolescent Psychosocial Interventions Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), explained how telehealth transformed ADHD care in 2020 and what the major concerns are moving forward for this patient population.

Rooney said a lot of what happens next will be up to the individual and many ADHD patients might be looking forward to a time where more in-personal social functions occur, while others might be really set back by the pandemic.