Did you know that the symptoms of ADHD greatly overlap the symptoms of sleep apnea?
It’s possible your child was misdiagnosed.“Possible” doesn’t necessarily mean “likely.” It simply means that untreated obstructive sleep apnea in kids can cause a symptom set that’s strikingly similar to that of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
ADHD and obstructive sleep apnea (which children can certainly have, even if they’re thin) share numerous symptoms.
Parents need to be familiar with these.
Symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sleep apnea overlap quite a bit.
• Poor concentration
• Irritability
• Impulsivity
• Problems organizing
• Difficulty keeping focused, which can lead to poor school performance
However, there are features of untreated obstructive sleep apnea that cannot possibly also be features of ADHD.
They are “muscle-leg cramps, fatigue, dull headache, bed wetting (enuresis), excessive daytime sleepiness, passing out for no reason, sleep walking, unexplained stomach pain or vomiting,” says Dr. Frank Barnhill, MD, board certified family physician practicing child and adult preventative care/ADHD-behavior medicine in upstate South Carolina.
Clue that Your Child Has Sleep Apnea and not ADHD
What would be a tip-off to a parent other than the obvious (excessive sleepiness, morning headaches)?
Dr. Barnhill says, “Most parents bring their child in for one of the more obvious physical symptoms – – usually bed wetting, abdominal pain or restless sleep.”
Why so much misdiagnosis?
Since sleep apnea presents with physical symptoms like morning headaches and dozing off during the daytime, how is it that the misdiagnosis of this as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder occurs much more commonly than what one would assume?
Don’t parents report to their doctors that Johnny keeps falling asleep in class; Johnny snores; he complains of waking up with headaches, etc.?
“No… they don’t,” says Dr. Barnhill. “Most of the time parents don’t know whether or not their child snores, or since the father does it, they just chalk it up to ‘it runs in the family.’
“Sometimes the same occurs with bed wetting, as many fathers of bed wetting kids also wet the bed until age 15-16.
“Also, teachers tend to overlook sleepiness or misinterpret it as the inattentive part of ADHD.
“That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book, Mistaken for ADHD, to educate teachers and other educators to look for all of these other things that are not indicative of ADHD.”
There is no current data regarding just how prevalent the misdiagnosis of childhood ADHD for untreated sleep apnea really is.
And the symptoms of untreated OSA will follow a child into adulthood until it’s diagnosed and treated.
Treatment will vary, depending on the cause, such as surplus pharyngeal tissue, large adenoids, large tonsils or obesity.
Sleep apnea in children is easily diagnosed with a sleep study.

Sleep study
A sleep study is also called a polysomnography, which monitors a child’s sleep patterns to identify sleep disorders.
During the study, sensors are attached to the child’s body to track brain waves, heart rate, breathing, oxygen levels and muscle activity during sleep.
The study is usually conducted overnight in a sleep center, where the young patient can be observed in a controlled environment.
Sleep apnea cannot be ruled out without a sleep study. Never.
Though the symptoms of ADHD and sleep apnea overlap considerably, the treatment modalities for these conditions vary significantly.
Here is more information on obstructive sleep apnea in children.