Connection Possible Between Eye Disorder in Children and ADHD
abstracted from Reuters News Service

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A potential relationship between convergence insufficiency, an eye disorder that normally affects less than 5% of children, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been uncovered by researchers at the University of California, San Diego.  Children with ADHD had three times the incidence of convergence insufficiency than would be expected in a random sampling of children.  The findings were announced by Dr. David B. Granet said last week during the American Academy of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus meeting in San Diego. Convergence insufficiency, an inability to keep both eyes focused on a close target, makes it more difficult to concentrate on reading. Failure to concentrate on a task such as reading is also one of the ways doctors diagnose ADHD, he noted.
After noticing an association clinically between ADHD and convergence insufficiency, Dr. Granet and colleagues reviewed the records of 266 children diagnosed with the eye disorder. The investigators found that 26 of these children (9.8%) also had a diagnosis of ADHD. Twenty of these patients were on medication for ADHD when diagnosed with convergence insufficiency. The researchers then reviewed their institution's records on 1,700 children diagnosed with ADHD who had also had eye examinations. Of the 176 children identified, almost 16%, or 28 children, also had convergence insufficiency.
"Convergence insufficiency may not be well known outside the field of eye care specialists," Dr. Granet told Reuters Health. "We don't know if children are being misdiagnosed with ADHD when they truly have convergence insufficiency or vice versa," he said. "We also don't know if one causes the other or if medications used for ADHD cause convergence insufficiency."

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