Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, is something that troubles both the affected children and their families. But looking deeper into the child’s nighttime behavior may yield surprising results.

You might find you’re child’s wild behavior during the day is linked to problems at night.

“About 50% of children with ADHD also have a sleep disorder and having a sleep disorder can directly give symptoms of ADHD,” says Dr. Jose Colon.

Dr. Colon is a pediatric neurologist and sleep specialist with the Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida.

“If you’re treating ADHD but you’re not addressing the sleep disorder then you’re not gonna get maximum affect for the medications.”

It might surprise parents to learn and estimate 3% of the pediatric population has sleep apnea; a condition where they briefly stop breathing. Sleep apnea and chronic sleep deprivation both affect the brain’s frontal lobe.

“The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that we use for attention. The ADHD medications primarily work with the frontal lobe. I have had multiple patients that in treating a sleep disorder their attention problems have dramatically improved,” says Dr. Colon.

Other times a child will have a limb movement disorder that fragments their sleep.

“Interestingly some studies have taken children diagnosed with periodic limb movement disorder and 75 percent of those kids can have daytime ADHD symptoms,” says Dr. Colon.

The gold standard in diagnosing a sleep disorder is to undergo a sleep study. In the same way adults are monitored through the night, children can go to the sleep lab too. It may spark a new day in their treatment.

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Dr. Schuyler VanDyke from our TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre of Montana explains the link between Sleep Disorders and ADHD.

Find a TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre in your area: https://tmjtherapycentre.com/centre-directory-geo-location/
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The AASM Sleep Medicine Fellowship Directors Council offers a free healthcare webinar lecture series for sleep medicine fellows and interested residents.

In this lecture, Lynn Marie Trotti, MD, MSc, discusses the central disorders of hypersomnolence.

To learn more about specializing in sleep medicine, visit aasm.org/professional-development/choose-sleep/.

Recorded March 11, 2020
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Chapters

0:00 Introduction
1:03 Causes of Hypersomnia
1:34 Symptoms of Hypersomnia
1:49 Diagnosis of Hypersomnia
2:59 Treatment of Hypersomnia

Hypersomnia is a neurological disorder of excessive time spent sleeping or excessive sleepiness. It can have many possible causes such as seasonal affective disorder[1] and can cause distress and problems with functioning.[2] In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), hypersomnolence, of which there are several subtypes, appears under sleep-wake disorders.[3]

Hypersomnia is a pathological state characterized by a lack of alertness during the waking episodes of the day.[4] It is not to be confused with fatigue, which is a normal physiological state.[5] Daytime sleepiness appears most commonly during situations where little interaction is needed.[6]

Since the patients’ attention levels are impaired, their quality of life may be impacted as well.[7] This is especially true for people whose jobs request high levels of attention, for example in the healthcare field.[7] Indeed, the lack of attention can cause injuries to self or others, which makes this disorder a real public health issue.[7]

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