Treatment of ADHD Throughout the Holiday Season

Manpreet K Singh, MD, MS, director, Pediatric Mood Disorders Program, Stanford University School of Medicine, California, offers tips for clinicians to maintain manage expectations and the best possible care for patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) throughout the holiday season. Dr Singh, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, says that patients, clinicians, and caretakers can feel "off-balance" due to the simultaneous social, organizational, work, and holiday demands causing the feeling of being overwhelmed or exhausted due to expectations.

Dr Singh recently presented a session titled "Complex comorbid ADHD: an update for all practices" at this year's Psych Congress in San Antonio, Texas.

Read the transcript:

Flint:  Hello, Psych Congress Network, and welcome. We're here today with Dr Manpreet Singh, and we are going to be following up on her Psych Congress 2021 conference session, where she discusses pediatric ADHD.

Dr Singh, welcome, and can you please introduce yourself?

Dr Manpreet K Singh:  Hello. I'm delighted to be here with you, Heather, today, and to have participated in the Psych Congress activities. My name is Manpreet Singh.

I direct the Pediatric Mood Disorders Program at Stanford University and lead a team to work on how we can better advance for use with and at risk for lifelong mood disorders, like depression and bipolar disorder, that also commonly run alongside things like ADHD and anxiety. I'm delighted to talk to you today about ADHD.

Flint:  As we go into the holiday season, we're entering a time where things get crazy. Doctors are taking off for vacation with their families. What tips do you have for clinicians or advice that could be really helpful in maintaining and making sure that their patients are adequately cared-for during a holiday season?

Dr Singh:  Heather, it's such a great question. This can be a very taxing time for anyone, and it can knock those individuals with attention-deficit or with hyperactivity disorder completely off balance due to lots of demands, social, organizational, workforce-related.

There's just so much going on simultaneously. Part of what gets folks out of balance is the feeling of being overwhelmed, frazzled, or exhausted, especially as the expectations that come with the holiday seasons begin to creep up.

Perceptions and thoughts that actually contribute, then end up really negatively impacting our mood, and making it impossible for us to enjoy the holidays. I would recommend that people examine expectations.

Look at what is realistic and give yourself grace. Give your family members grace who might be experiencing symptoms or/and support them. All of the shoulds about the holiday season should probably be, again, critically evaluated to understand whether they're realistic and obtainable.

If not, maybe it should be considered to change the shoulds to maybe "I would prefer to do this," or, "it would be nice," or, "it would be ideal." If we can't do it, let's shoot for next year. That's giving yourself grace.

I think that the more we place an emphasis on the true value and meaning of what the holidays are to us individually and us connecting with our families, I think that that can perhaps realign priorities and enable us to have some more realistic expectations.

The well-being piece is so important because I often say that scheduling time for self-care is critical because you can't care-give to others if you don't care-give for yourself. Making time to take care of yourself and having a careful review of your priorities might just help make this holiday season just a little bit more manageable than otherwise.

Flint:  I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on that because it is a very important time of year. With that, I will say, we wish you a wonderful holiday season. We are so thankful that you had time to sit down with us, and we hope that you'll sit down with us again in the future and discuss more on these important topics.

Dr Singh:  I would be delighted. Thank you so much, Heather.

Flint: Thank you.

Dr Singh is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and leads a program aimed to accelerate understanding and treatment of youth with or at high risk for developing lifelong mood disorders. Dr. Singh earned her MD at Michigan State University and her MS at the University of Michigan. She completed her combined residency training in Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Dr Singh leads a multidisciplinary team that evaluates and treats youth with a spectrum of mood disorders as young as age 2 and well into their 20s. Her research examines mechanisms underlying mood disorders and applies cutting-edge strategies to directly modulate the brain using transcranial magnetic stimulation and real-time neurofeedback. She also investigates the efficacy and safety of pharmacotherapies and psychotherapies, such as family-focused psychotherapy and mindfulness meditation, to reduce mood symptoms and family stress. All of these areas of research aim to elucidate core mechanisms underlying mood disorders and how timely evaluation and treatment early in life can pave the path to more adaptive long-term outcomes.