Comorbidities

Comorbid [ koh-mawr-bid ]

adjective

(of medical conditions) present simultaneously in a patient: comorbid insomnia and anxiety; depression comorbid with phobias; diabetics with comorbid hypertension.

Addiction/Substance Abuse: increased impulsivity and behavioural problems which can contribute to abuse. Those with ADHD are three times more likely to develop a substance abuse problem. This can be because the brain is seeking rewarding behaviours, or because of comorbid conditions from the person’s life experience to this point.

Alexithymia: difficulty accurately identifying or describing emotions and sensations in ourselves or others.

Anxiety: a feeling of unease, worry or fear which can have a varying degree of effect on a person’s mental wellbeing and behaviour.

Aphantasia: do not think in pictures, unable to visualise imagery or conjure a scene in their minds.

Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD): Also known as auditory processing disorder (APD). People with CAPD can hear, but the brain has trouble filtering and processing the sounds. Can include not being able to differentiate between similar sounds in words, hearing what someone is saying to them but not being able to make sense of it, difficulty blocking out background noise and not being able to tell from which direction a sound is coming from.

Depression: a state of feeling unhappy or unmotivated, and without hope for the future. Can affect behaviour, appetite, motivation, mood and sleep.

Dyscalculia: a neurodevelopmental condition frequently seen with ADHD and autism, which affects the ability to understand, learn, and perform math and number-based operations.

Dysgraphia: a neurodevelopmental condition frequently seen with ADHD and autism causing difficulties with letter formation and word spacing in handwriting.

Dyspraxia: preferred term now developmental co-ordination disorder – ‘dyspraxia’ can mean different things in adults, when it is caused by a stroke or head injury for example. It is a neurological developmental condition, which affects motor skills and co-ordination. Although it can impact learning, it is not a learning disorder.

Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD): A type of behaviour disorder. Children with ODD are uncooperative, defiant, and hostile toward peers, parents, teachers, and other authority figures.

Pre-menstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD): A very severe and debilitating form of PMS which impacts life, work and relationships dramatically. It can lead to mental health crises and suicidal thoughts. Autistic women and women with ADHD are known to be more likely to suffer from both PMS and PMDD. Both can also affect the way ADHD medications work and increase the risk of autistic discomfort and meltdowns.

Prosopagnosia: Also known as ‘face blindness’. A condition where people have great difficulty recognising faces that they have seen before, even many times. In extreme cases, they may have trouble recognising close members of their family.

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria: Becoming more widely known, particularly with ADHD. It is extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also be triggered by a sense of falling short—failing to meet their own high standards or others’ expectations.

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD): Also known as sensory integration disorder. A neurological disorder or difference that results from the brain’s inability to integrate certain information received from the body’s sensory systems. The individual reacts in an extreme way to sensory experiences.

Synaesthesia: A condition where two or more senses that are normally experienced separately, are involuntarily joined together. For example, experiencing colour when hearing sounds or reading words. These sensations cannot be turned on or off. Synaesthesia isn’t a disease or illness, and is not harmful at all.

Tourette Syndrome (TS): One type of neurological disorder characterised by severe or very frequent tics. Tics are involuntary and repetitive movements and vocalizations.