Existing in a distracted reality

As a clinical neuropsychologist, I see patients presenting with a variety of cognitive complaints.  With increasing frequency, adults arrive in my clinic asking to be evaluated for adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.  Adult ADHD is a slippery diagnosis, to be sure, yet the nature of these patients seems to have morphed in the past few years.  What once were patients with a clear developmental history of behavioral and learning problems and persistent difficulties with focus, executive functioning, and mood regulation now are more commonly mothers and fathers in their early 30s who maintain steady employment, but worry about their jobs, yet have no convincing developmental history.  They describe distractibility, forgetfulness, and mental cloudiness.  At home, they feel frazzled, flitting from one task to another, feeling unaccomplished in all of them.  Like many of us, their homes are filled with electronic distractions—Facebook, YouTube, e-mail, text messaging, Internet chat, and television to name a few.