GIBSONIA — A seminar at St. Barnabas Monday night aimed at exposing the dangers of undiagnosed attention deficit disorder attracted dozens of residents and community members.

The seminar's speakers included ADD specialists who talked about how to detect and manage the disorder effectively.

Dr. Victoria Ball, of Providence, R.I., debunked several myths about the disorder as her mother and St. Barnabas resident Florence Ball listened in the crowd.

Dr. Ball said one of the most harmful misconceptions is that it mainly affects children. Ball said she recently diagnosed a patient in her 80s who unknowingly lived with the disorder her entire life.

She also cautioned St. Barnabas residents not to confuse symptoms of ADD with maladies like Alzheimer's disease or dementia, a problem that leads to misdiagnoses and untreated patients.

"In a lot of these cases, older people in nursing homes are overlooking ADD," Ball said. "But the good thing is that it's never too late to diagnose, and it's never too late to help."

She also said about 85 percent of ADD cases in America are undiagnosed because people attribute the disorder's side effects to other negative stigmas and assumptions.

"A lot of people think (people with ADD) are lazy or it's a case of bad parenting," she said. "That's just not true. The truth is there are people with ADD all over the place."

Ball described the struggle of living with the disorder. She said untreated cases frequently are linked to other afflictions such as obesity, depression and drug addiction.

She also said American companies lose billions of dollars annually because the disorder correlates to poor job performance, lowered workforce productivity and learning disabilities.

Ball's comments hit home for Dan Keener.

He drove to St. Barnabas from Canonsburg to hear her advice. He's been gathering information from any source he finds after his son was diagnosed with a mild case of ADD.

Keener said his son dropped out of the Air Force and tried living on his own for a while. He recently moved home to see a therapist for the disorder and begin treatment.

It was a long drive just to hear the talk, Keener said, but one that was worth it.

"I'm really hitting this hard and heavy," he said. "I'm gathering as much information as possible right now and taking whatever I can get my hands on to help."

Bryce Billetdeaux, a 12-year resident of St. Barnabas, doesn't have ADD and doesn't know many people who do, but he said it's important to study it so future generations can benefit from the research.

He said children should be exposed to the disorder at a young age and taught about its complications and side effects so they can self-diagnose themselves.

For now, however, it's time to bring the disorder to the forefront of the public so more people can accurately diagnose themselves or their loved ones, Billetdeaux said.

"An awful lot of people living with it don't recognize it for what it is," he said. "And that's a shame."