Researchers recently discovered a new way to diagnose attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, in patients.
According to an August 14 PsychCentral article, researchers at Tel Aviv University have found that monitoring involuntary eye movements in patients is an accurate way to diagnose ADHD.
This method of diagnosis is the first physiological diagnostic tool for ADHD, which is a disorder that inhibits one’s ability to focus, among other symptoms. It is also the most diagnosed and misdiagnosed disorder in the U.S., according to PsychCentral.
“Often my ADHD coaching clients are misdiagnosed and they end up taking medication for something they don’t have,” says Coach Juli of CoachJuli.com. “It makes sense that rapid eye movements would be a sign since the ADHD brain is typically firing off fast and lots of eye movements would make complete sense. Accuracy is very important in this diagnosis as the medications are pretty powerful and no one who doesn’t need them should be on them.”
Headlines & Global News reported that the Tel Aviv University researchers used an eye-tracking system to monitor eye movements in two groups of adults as they completed a diagnostic computer test — one ADHD group and one non-ADHD group. A direct correlation between involuntary eye movement and ADHD was found.
Typically, doctors diagnose ADHD by looking at a patient’s medical and social history, as well as the patient’s behavior, according to PsychCentral. However, observing involuntary eye movements is “foolproof,” according to Moshe Fried, Ph.D., the study’s leader.
“With other tests, you can slip up, make ‘mistakes’ — intentionally or not,” Fried said. “But our test cannot be fooled. Eye movements tracked in this test are involuntary, so they constitute a sound physiological marker of ADHD.”