ADHD: Common Illness In Children

Hello , my name is Dr. Gayatri Chaudhary. I work at Suasth One Step clinic as a consultant psychiatrist.

Today we are going to talk about common illness in children. The first illness that we are going to talk about is ADHD. Now what is the full form of ADHD? ADHD means Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. What are the symptoms of ADHD? So the children have hyperactivity as the name suggests. Hyperactivity means that the child has difficulty sitting at one place. Now this difficulty sitting in one place could be either in school or at home. Most of the times it could be at more than one place.

So the child is hyperactive, cannot sit at one place, is always on the go, cannot wait for his turn at class, is always disturbing other children in class and when the child is at home, again the child cannot stay at home, he cannot concentrate on activities and is driven by a motor of sorts.

There is another component to the illness that is inattention. Now in inattention the children are unable to concentrate or lack attention. As the name suggests, ADHD, this is the inattention part. Now in inattention, children usually lack their concentration levels. They are not able to concentrate in any activity. Primarily, patients complain about their lack of attention in studies, but their inattention very well be in other aspects like they are doing some project work from school, or any other task, or for that matter sports like playing cricket or playing football or any cube play.

The other component of ADHD is high impulsivity. So the child cannot wait for his turn in the class. He blurts out answers when its not needed. He is always on the go and the child usually wants to talk when not asked and he wants to leave his seat when he is not asked to. So there will be frequent complaints from the school teacher that the child is not sitting at one place, he’s disturbing others in school and he is not able to concentrate on his studies. One more common complaint that the school might complaint about is that the child is difficulty in remembering his syllabus or remembering what is taught in class. He forgets his belongings in school. He forgets his pencils, erasers and notebooks in school and because of these complaints.

We should be wary if our child has ADHD. Now the good part about this is that it can be treated. It can be treated with medication and it can be treated with therapy. Many a times we are sceptical about whether to start the child on medication, but, because the child is inattentive, because he is hyperactive, the child is not able to use his or her capabilities to her best, that’s why it causes problems in academics, it causes problems with peer relations with other children in the school and it causes problem in the households also. So it is very important to get the ADHD treated. Now medications that are available are, you can easily consult a psychiatrist and get the child evaluated and start on medication. There are therapies available.

Like you can take the child for occupational therapy or remedial education or remedial therapy. All these things are going to help the child to be good in academics as well as their peer relationships and it would help the child in their further studies. To know more about ADHD you can book an appointment with lybrate.com .