About ADAA > 25 Years: A History > Forward to 2030
Forward to 2030: The Next 25 Years

As exciting and promising as the first 25 years of research into anxiety disorders has been in advancing our ability to identify, diagnose and treat these disorders, the next 25 years hold the promise of even greater progress. Research that is currently underway and expected to be initiated in the future will undoubtedly shed significant new light on our understanding and treatment of anxiety disorders. It is possible during the next 25 years that new medical and scientific research may:

• determine whether there is a genetic basis for anxiety disorders;
  
• confirm new insights into how anxiety disorders affect the brain, leading to the development of new forms of diagnosis and treatment;
  
• identify ways to effectively combine various existing therapies for greater results;
  
• discover medications that work faster and with fewer or no side effects, as well as medications that target specific anxiety disorders;
  
• develop increasingly accurate diagnostic tests that indicate who is likely to benefit the most from which treatments;
  
• determine when a specific treatment is sufficient for a particular patient or can be discontinued without fear of relapse;
  
• determine why a treatment that works for most people with a particular anxiety disorder does not work for others;
  
• develop a better understanding of the potential links between various anxiety disorders and the links between anxiety disorders and other illnesses, such as depression or substance abuse;
  
• help individuals and families manage treatment successfully over a lifetime when necessary; and
  
• discover ways to prevent anxiety disorders from ever developing.

In short, the research we undertake in the next 25 years may completely reinvent the ways we currently think about and treat anxiety disorders. The ADAA will continue to support research into the treatment and cure of these disorders, and continue to evolve simultaneously with new discoveries in the field to make certain we can fulfill the ADAA's mission.