Head Injury in Young Kids May Predict ADHD Diagnosis

Risk-taking an early sign of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, researchers say

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

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THURSDAY, Nov. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Very young children who sustain a head injury may be more likely to be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later, researchers report.

The head injury is not a cause of ADHD, but rather a result of excessive risk-taking, according to the paper published in the Nov. 8 online edition of the British Medical Journal.

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"There have been studies done that link moderate to severe traumatic brain injury in older children to ADHD," said lead researcher Dr. Heather Keenan, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. "There has been some suggestion that mild traumatic brain injury could also be linked to ADHD."

The researchers wanted to know whether or not head injury that occurs before the age of 2 might cause ADHD. A diagnosis of ADHD cannot be made before that age, Keenan noted.

"It is hard to figure this out, because we don't know whether or not the kids would have gone on to develop ADHD regardless of the head injury," Keenan said.

For the study, Keenan's group collected data on 62,088 children who were registered in a British health improvement network database. The researchers compared the children with head injuries to two other groups: children with a burn/scald injury before the age of 2, and all the other non-injured children.

"We wanted to make sure that if we saw a relationship between head injury and ADHD, it wasn't just that kids with early injuries were showing behavioral traits that would make them more likely to be diagnosed versus the head injury itself," Keenan said.

The researchers found that children with early head injury did have a 90 percent higher incidence of ADHD diagnosis before they were 10, compared with children in the general population. However, children with a scalding injury also had a higher risk of being diagnosed with ADHD, 70 percent to be exact. "Therefore, the head injury did not appear to cause the ADHD," Keenan said.

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