Question:
While cleaning out some files I ran across a old, psychological evaluation.It was regarding my son who had been hospitalized for out of controlbehavior & observation.As many times as I've looked those papers over I never remember seeing whatI saw today.Under....IMPRESSIONS it says...."Frontal lobe syndrome (organicpersonality) with associated attention deficits and fine motor coordinationdifficulties." I haven't been able to find a lot of information about"frontal lobe syndrome....mainly it's caused from an accident of somekind....and organic personality appears to be something associated with theelderly... Ok...so can anybody understand why they told us he was sufferingfrom ADHD and ODD? Could frontal lobe syndrome be caused from trauma atbirth? Could ADD/ADHD/CD/ODD.....be "symptoms" of frontal lobesyndrome/organic personality? Anybody know what "gives" here?

Answer: If you have access to medline do a search on the nameMichael Alexander. He has written a lot about he subject ofthe frontal lobe. It's quite an intersting structure. It'sbeen called the brain's censor, the observing ego-- thatpart of the psyche that observes and moderates the morebasic impulses. Disruptions cause problems in attention,"inappropriate" behaviors, etc. Problems with attentionmake new learning difficult. Disruptions to the frontallobe make it difficult to access information that hasalready been learned. There are some good interventionstrategies--some similar to interventions for ADHD, somedifferent.

Frontal lobe dementia usually effects the elderly. As anexample of what the frontal lobes do, an individual with FLDmay have been prim and proper all through life and startwalking down main street naked--that part of the brain thatnormally censors behavior isn't working.

FWIW, frontal lobe problems can also make a person lookpsychotic.