Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) is a condition in which children or adolescents experience persistent irritability and anger and frequent, intense temper outbursts.
The most common of these are Intermittent Explosive Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. However, more than 32 disorders listed anger, aggression, or irritability as a symptom.
Intermittent explosive disorder is a formal mental health diagnosis characterized by outbursts of intense anger or aggression that would be considered disproportionate to the situation at hand.
Emotional regulation can be challenging for children with ADHD, and bouts of anger are common. In fact, it's estimated that anywhere between 40–65 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD also have a condition called Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or ODD, which includes anger as one of its symptoms.
Adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including Asperger's and autism, are prone to anger outbursts. An 'on-off' quality during which individuals may be calm one second and then have an autism outburst in the next is common.
The short answer is that anger can run in families, and genetics can indeed play a role—which might help to explain your angry inclinations. However, there's another significant factor that can lead to kids adopting angry tendencies from their relatives: learned behavior.
First, it is not bipolar disorder: Some research suggests that IED and bipolar disorder can co-occur at high rates, but they are not the same thing. For example, someone with bipolar disorder exhibits far more mood symptoms than someone with IED.
They may use the multidimensional anger test and multidimensional anger inventory or another anger test and clinical anger scale entirely. Your doctor may also want to rule out other mental or physical health conditions, so they may perform a physical exam and run blood tests for research purposes.
One common trigger is frustration when a child cannot get what he or she wants or is asked to do something that he or she might not feel like doing. For children, anger issues often accompany other mental health conditions, including ADHD, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Tourette's syndrome.
Antidepressants for anger
SSRIs are commonly prescribed to treat conditions like depression and anxiety, but they've also been used to treat symptoms of anger or irritability. SSRIs that have been shown to help with anger include citalopram (Celexa), fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), among others.
Risperdal is the brand name of a generic drug called risperidone. What is Risperdal used for? Risperdal (risperidone) is used to help kids with serious behavior problems like aggression or mood issues like irritability. Risperdal is also used treat symptoms of psychosis.
Definition. Brunner syndrome is a recessive X-linked disorder characterized by impulsive aggressiveness and mild mental retardation associated with MAOA deficiency (Brunner et al., 1993). [ from OMIM]
There are a variety of neurological and psychiatric conditions that are at increased risk for anger, rage and reactive aggression. These include posttraumatic stress disorder [10], borderline personality disorder [11], psychopathy [12], and “acquired sociopathy” following damage to orbital frontal cortex [13, 14].
Bipolar disorder can occur at any age, although it often develops between the ages of 15 and 19 and rarely develops after 40. Men and women from all backgrounds are equally likely to develop bipolar disorder. The pattern of mood swings in bipolar disorder varies widely between people.
This suggests that the attention challenges of ADHD may contribute to anger. This is possibly because inattentiveness can be frustrating, or because it can cause a person to feel distracted by things that make them angry.
Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD): DMDD affects children and adolescents. It involves frequent anger outbursts and irritability out of proportion to the situation. DMDD is more severe than intermittent explosive disorder (IED), and anger is present most of the time, occurring before the age of 10.
Regular stimulant medication for ADHD helps ADHD symptoms much of the time, but is only about half as helpful with anger problems.
Methylphenidate (MPH), a psychostimulant increasing dopamine and noradrenaline tone, is effective in reducing aggression in both CD and ADHD individuals.
Kids with ADHD can also have tantrums or meltdowns. These meltdowns can be extreme and often involve crying, yelling, and fits of anger. When a child has a meltdown, parents may feel overwhelmed and not know what to do.