What is ADHD?

ADHD stands for ‘attention deficit hyperactivity disorder’. ADHD is a neurodevelopment disorder found most commonly in childhood age. ADHD interferes with how a child behaves, pays attention, and does different actions. ADHD can not be cured but it can be surely managed with a proper education plan and good treatment if diagnosed at an earlier time. Children with ADHD might face difficulty in paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors, or might be overly active.

Misdiagnosis of ADHD:

ADHD and vision problems are two different conditions, these two problems are sometimes miscomprehended and mixed due to lack of proper knowledge and diagnosis as these two have almost the same symptoms. Vision or sight disorders make a child uncomfortable and interfere with proper functionality in schoolwork. Due to undiagnosed poor eyesight child is unable to focus and gets frustrated which leads to misbehavior which is sometimes misdiagnosed as ADHD. It is very important to get a child’s eyesight assessed early to avoid this fuss of misdiagnosis of ADHD. On-time detection of poor eyesight will give a boost to treatment, eye exercises, contacts, and eyeglasses that will encourage the normal development of a child.

How to know when your child needs an eye test?

Parents need to closely examine the behavior of their child to find out if the child is facing any vision-related difficulty, there are some signs and indications that might help in deciding whether to go for an eye test or not:

1. Squinting: By doing this act, the child might try to focus as poor eyesight may interfere with the proper focus of the child.
2. Tilting head or covering one eye: The child might do this to change the angle of vision to increase clarity.
3. Sitting too close to any digital device like a television or seeing things keeping too close to the eyes might be some signs of myopia as holding things closer to the eye makes things look bigger and clearer.
4. Rubbing eyes excessively may be due to eye fatigue or eye strain and can also be a sign of any vision problem.
5. Complaining of headache or eye pain may be due to exertion of the eye is struggling to focus on things due to blurred vision.
6. Having difficulty in focusing and giving attention and concentration to school work.

An early eye test can prevent any eye condition or complexity in the future.