The role of sleep quality and quantity in moderating the effectiveness of medication in the treatment of children with ADHD
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Date
2012
Authors
Morash, Jessica
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mount Saint Vincent University
Abstract
There is strong empirical evidence that stimulant medications, such as methylphenidate
hydrochloride (MPH), are effective in reducing ADHD symptoms (Ritchers et al., 1995);
however, these medications can also cause sleep problems (Corkum et al., 2008). Furthermore,
poor sleep has been documented to result in performance deficits in memory, attention and
academic performance (Gruber et al., 2011). This study examined: 1) whether stimulant
medication is effective in improving performance on measures of memory, attention and
academic productivity, and 2) if sleep impacts the relationship between medication and
performance. Participants were 21 children (mean age = 9.1 years) with ADHD, who participated
in a four week randomized controlled trial of long lasting MPH (2 weeks of medication and 2
weeks of placebo). Participants underwent assessments of sleep (polysomnography and
actigraphy) and of cognitive performance. We predicted that there would be a relationship
between sleep quantity (duration) and quality (efficiency) medication effects on cognitive
performance. Our findings supported stimulant medication as an effective treatment for
enhancing alerting attention, executive attention, working memory, and academic productivity
performance in children with ADHD. Bivariate correlations between cognitive performance and
sleep revealed a significant relationship between sleep duration and executive attention accuracy
during incongruent trials of the ANT-I, r= .456, p= .025. A one-way ANOVA was used to
compare the good sleep group and poor sleep group (above and below the mean sleep duration,
respectively) on executive attention incongruent accuracy. Statistical analysis revealed that
children performed significantly different on executive attention incongruent accuracy depending
on baseline sleep, F(1, 19)= 6.859, p= .017. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for
clinical practice and future research.
Description
Keywords
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , Sleep quality , Cognitive performance