A recent study, reported in the Sleep journal suggested that children that suffer from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be significantly sleep deprived and suffer from REM sleep.
Results show that children with ADHD have a total sleep time that is significantly shorter than that of controls. Children in the ADHD group had an average total sleep time of eight hours, 19 minutes; this was 33 minutes less than the average sleep time of eight hours, 52 minutes, in controls.
Results in this latest study are more encouraging than those in previous studies, due to the fact that researchers were able to control for many factors. Measuring sleep architecture in the children's beds at home using portable PSG, also allowed researchers to better represent the natural sleep pattern, thus increasing the validity of the study.
"I do not believe that sleep per se is the cause of ADHD, but it may make the symptoms worse in children with sleep problems. There are reports in the literature in which treating sleep problems led to improvement in ADHD symptoms but I suspect that these results were seen in children with sleep apnea. More research needs to be done in order to determine if sleep affects ADHD children with no primary sleep disorder."
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Offering impartial advice about childrens beds, bedding, mattresses and most importantly how to offer your child a trouble free nights sleep
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