Hyper kid? Sleep apnea may be the culprit - Kids and parenting - MSNBC.com
By Roni Caryn Rabin
Special to msnbc.com
updated 4:32 a.m. HT, Wed., Feb. 6, 2008
When Benjamin Kidd was in pre-K last year, his teachers marveled at how bright, attentive and well-behaved he was — in the morning.
Later in the day, Ben was a different child. He was fidgety and he couldn’t focus. He couldn’t sit still for a story. And he burst into tears and temper tantrums at the slightest provocation.
After taking him to one specialist after another, his mother, Michelle Kidd, who lives in Hillsborough N.J., finally figured out what the problem was: 5-year-old Ben was exhausted. Doctors who ran an overnight sleep study on him last fall said he was suffering from obstructive sleep apnea, a sleep disorder associated with middle age but not uncommon in preschoolers, where it can lead to behavior easily mistaken for hyperactivity — even though it’s actually caused by fatigue.
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“You know how it is when you let your kid stay up too late, and they’re bouncing off the walls and don’t listen?” says Kidd, who had consulted physicians at the Somerset Medical Center’s Sleep for Life Center in Hillsborough. “It was a lot of that.”
Obstructive sleep apnea affects 2 percent of children and has made headlines in recent years because it's more common in obese youth. Still, experts say, it's often overlooked by doctors. Ben Kidd, who’s tall and gangly for his age, doesn’t fit the typical profile for sleep apnea, which may be why doctors didn’t identify the problem earlier. Pediatricians are supposed to screen all children for snoring, which is a red flag for apnea, but many fail to do so. And experts fear some children are being inappropriately diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and medicated, while the underlying sleep problem goes untreated.
“Lots of studies suggest that kids with sleep apnea are more likely to be hyperactive, impulsive and inattentive," says Dr. Judith Owens, associate professor of pediatrics at Brown University Medical School, and co-author of "Take Charge of Your Child's Sleep."
"It affects behavior and mood, so these kids can look a lot like a kid with ADHD,” she says.
At the same time, the more experts learn about sleep apnea, the more concerned they become. Left untreated, sleep apnea may affect parts of the brain involved in learning, taking a toll on cognitive function and academic performance, and shaving points off a child’s IQ.
Sleep apnea also seems to play a role in childhood obesity, since children who don’t get enough rest are less physically active. The sleep disorder has been linked to depression, too.