Children With Sleep Apnea Don’t Get The Rest They Need
One in 50 kids will develop obstructive sleep apnea.
“If you look at the bottom third of a classroom in performance, over half those kids will have undiagnosed sleep apnea,” said Floyd Livingston, a pediatric pulmonologist at Nemours Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Floyd Livingston says many kids with sleep apnea will be misdiagnosed as being hyperactive. According to the American Sleep Apnea Association, as many as 25 percent of kids diagnosed with ADHD may actually have sleep apnea. And while most cases of sleep apnea in adults are caused by obesity, enlarged tonsils and adenoids are usually to blame in children. The condition most often affects kids between the ages of two and eight.
