Neurological Disorders In King Henry IV, Part II

For centuries now, many people in and out of the medical field have encountered humans with attention issues. In King Henry IV, Part 2, Shakespeare may have been aware of the condition of A.D.D., Attention Deficit Disorder, which the character of Falstaff in King Henry IV Part 2 may be referring to when he describes himself as having “the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking” (Act I, Scene ii). Neurological disorders have been researched by the medical field. Like many neurological disorders, A.D.D. has had its fair-share of misdiagnosis and mistreatment. For decades now, children and adults have consumed mind-altering medications. Why? There are four main qualities that define A.D.D.: selective attention, distractibility, impulsivity and in some children, hyperactivity –

Some children have needed the medication, but many have been misunderstood, mistreated, mislabeled and misdiagnosed, because there has always been a subtle implication that something was always wrong with them, rather than something right. A child who was labeled different became a child with a deficit and a disorder. They were led to believe that they were of lesser value in the classroom and in society in general, because our school system rewards sameness and undervalues difference. The diagnosis of A.D.D. is not based on laboratory tests; on the contrary, it is based on observations made by professionals, parents and teachers. However, recently, within the last few decades, EGG neurological research has shown that children and adults with A.D.D. show different brain wave patterns. A.D.D. medications are thought to increase neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers that are responsible for information processing throughout the