# ADHD > Trouble with attention, restlessness and follow-through is real, common and treatable, in children and in adults. We evaluate carefully first, then build treatment around how ADHD actually shows up in your life. **Source:** https://www.uniquembhs.com/adhd-treatment **Practice:** Unique Minds Behavioral Health Services, LLC. Baltimore, MD: 6810 Park Heights Ave, Suite C6, Baltimore, MD 21215 · Washington, DC: 1402 North Capitol St NW, #1, Washington, DC 20002 · Delaware, OH: 1 W Winter St, Suite 211, Delaware, OH 43015 **Phone:** (443) 538-8400 **Clinically reviewed by:** Dr. Victorine (Vicky) Ngang, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC, MSN, RN **Last reviewed:** 2026-08-11 ## Quick answer ADHD is a common neurodevelopmental condition that affects attention, impulse control and organisation, in children and adults. Unique Minds Behavioral Health Services evaluates and treats ADHD across Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Ohio, combining a thorough psychiatric evaluation with medication management and practical, skills-based therapy, in person at our offices or by secure video. ## What ADHD actually is Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition, a difference in how the brain manages attention, impulses and activity, not a character flaw and not a lack of effort. According to the [National Institute of Mental Health](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd), symptoms begin in childhood and often continue into adulthood, though they can look very different at different ages. None of it means you are not smart or not trying. Most people we see have spent years trying harder than everyone around them. ## The three ways it shows up NIMH describes ADHD through three kinds of symptom, **inattention** (losing the thread, losing the keys, losing the afternoon), **hyperactivity** (moving, fidgeting, talking, at moments when everyone else is still), and **impulsivity** (interrupting, intruding, struggling to wait). Which of them dominates is what clinicians mean when they talk about ADHD "presentations": - **Mostly inattentive.** Quiet, drifting, disorganised, easily lost in a task or lost to one. This is the presentation that gets missed for decades, because it never disrupted a classroom. - **Mostly hyperactive-impulsive.** Restless, fast, first to speak and first to move. Usually spotted early, because everyone around it notices. - **Both together.** The most common picture in the people we evaluate, and the one where inattention often only becomes visible once the restlessness settles with age. The presentation is not a fixed label. It commonly shifts across a life (the child who could not sit still becomes the adult who cannot start), and treatment follows the pattern you have now, not the one you had at eight. ## How ADHD is diagnosed There is no blood test, brain scan or single questionnaire for ADHD. It is a **clinical diagnosis**, made by a provider who takes the time to build a picture across your whole life, and that assessment is what a [psychiatric evaluation](/psychiatry-practices/psychiatric-evaluation) is for. What it looks at: - **A history that reaches back to childhood.** ADHD is a developmental condition, so an evaluation asks what school, home and friendships were actually like, not just what this month has been like. Old report cards, if you still have them, are unexpectedly useful. - **More than one setting.** According to the [National Institute of Mental Health](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd), the behaviors in ADHD are frequent and occur across multiple situations, at school, at home, at work, or with family and friends. A problem that exists only in one job, with one boss, points somewhere else. - **Real-world cost.** Symptoms that are noticeable but not getting in the way are not a disorder. What matters is what attention and impulse control are costing you in the parts of life you care about. - **What else could explain it.** Anxiety, depression, trauma, sleep disorders, thyroid problems, substance use and hearing or vision difficulties can all produce something that looks like ADHD, and several of them can also sit alongside genuine ADHD. Ruling in and ruling out is most of the work. - **Someone else's view, where it helps.** With children, parents and school reports are part of the picture. With adults, a partner or a parent often remembers what you cannot. We evaluate children and adults. If the answer is not ADHD, you still leave with an answer. That is the point of assessing properly rather than prescribing quickly. ## What causes ADHD Nobody can yet name a single cause. NIMH describes research into **genes, hormones and other molecules, brain structure and activity, and prenatal and early-life exposures**, which is to say the evidence points at biology and development, and it points hard at family history: ADHD runs in families, and it is common for a parent to recognise themselves halfway through their child's evaluation. What it is not caused by is the list people arrive carrying: not laziness, not low intelligence, not bad parenting, and not a moral failing anyone should be apologising for. Understanding that is often the first thing treatment actually changes. ## ADHD in children, and in adults In children, ADHD often looks like the classroom: unfinished work, a desk that erupts, a teacher's note that says "if only they applied themselves." In adults it tends to go quieter. Missed deadlines, a career below your ability, relationships strained by forgetfulness, and a private exhaustion from holding it all together. Adults are also more likely to have picked up company along the way. Anxiety, low mood and sleep problems commonly travel with untreated ADHD, and part of a good evaluation is working out which is which, because treating the wrong one first rarely works. ## How treatment works here Everything starts with a [psychiatric evaluation](/psychiatry-practices/psychiatric-evaluation): your history, your symptoms now, and what else could explain them. If ADHD is the right explanation, treatment is built with you, not handed to you. For many people that means [medication management](/psychiatry-practices/medication-management). Stimulant or non-stimulant options, started carefully and adjusted in follow-up until the dose actually fits. For many it also means [therapy](/therapy-services/individual-therapy) focused on the practical side: routines that hold, systems for time and tasks, and repairing what years of "why can't you just" have done to your confidence. We treat children and adults, in person in Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Delaware, Ohio, and by secure video across both. ## When to reach out If attention, restlessness or follow-through is costing you school, work or relationships, or your child's teacher keeps raising the same flags. An evaluation is the useful next step. It does not commit you to medication or to anything else. It answers the question. ## What it can look like - Starting tasks is hard, and finishing them is harder, even ones that matter to you. - Careless mistakes at school or work that do not match how much you actually know. - A mind that changes channel mid-conversation, mid-page, or mid-sentence. - Restlessness: fidgeting, pacing, or a motor that will not switch off. - Losing keys, phones, deadlines and appointments more than other people seem to. - Interrupting or acting before thinking, then regretting it. - Time slips: five minutes becomes an hour, and being on time is a daily fight. - Emotions that arrive fast and at full volume, then pass just as quickly. - Deep absorption in the interesting thing while everything else waits. - In adults, a lifetime of "bright but scattered" that nobody ever explained. ## How we treat it - [Psychiatric Evaluation](https://www.uniquembhs.com/psychiatry-practices/psychiatric-evaluation) - [Medication Management](https://www.uniquembhs.com/psychiatry-practices/medication-management) - [Individual Therapy](https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/individual-therapy) - [Cognitive Behavioral Therapy](https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/cognitive-behavioral-therapy) ## Frequently asked questions ### Do you evaluate adults for ADHD, or only children? Both. Many adults reach us after a lifetime of being called disorganised or unmotivated, and a careful evaluation is often the first time the pattern makes sense. We look at your history back to childhood, how symptoms show up now, and what else could explain them: anxiety, depression, sleep problems and thyroid issues can all look like ADHD. ### Will I be prescribed medication at the first appointment? The first appointment is an evaluation, not a prescription. If medication is likely to help, your provider will talk through the options, stimulant and non-stimulant, with their benefits and side effects, and you decide together. Whatever is started is then adjusted in follow-up visits until it is actually working for you. ### Can ADHD care happen by telehealth? Yes. We see patients across Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Ohio by secure video, and many ADHD follow-ups work well that way. Your provider will tell you if anything about your care needs an in-person visit, and our Baltimore and Washington offices are there when it does. ### How is ADHD different from just being distracted? Everyone loses focus sometimes. ADHD is a lifelong pattern, usually visible from childhood, that shows up in more than one part of life and gets in the way of things you genuinely want to do. That difference is exactly what a psychiatric evaluation is designed to sort out. ### Is there a single test that diagnoses ADHD? No. There is no blood test, brain scan or single questionnaire that settles it. ADHD is diagnosed clinically, through a careful interview about how attention, activity and impulse control have worked across your life and across settings, what else could account for it, and what it is costing you day to day. Questionnaires and other people's observations inform that picture; they do not replace it. ### Can you have ADHD as well as anxiety or depression? Often, yes. And it is one of the main reasons ADHD gets missed. Years of underperforming against your own ability leaves a mark, and anxiety, low mood and sleep problems commonly sit on top of untreated ADHD. Part of the evaluation is working out what is driving what, because treating only the anxiety when ADHD is underneath it tends to disappoint everyone. ## Sources - Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). National Institute of Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd - Mental Health Medications. National Institute of Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/mental-health-medications ## Related pages - [Anxiety Disorders](https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments) - [Depression](https://www.uniquembhs.com/depression-treatment) - [Autism Spectrum Disorder](https://www.uniquembhs.com/autism-spectrum-disorder) --- This page is general health information, not medical advice. 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