Eye Tracking for ADHD and Concussions - Dr. Sarah Cheyette, MD

A recent New York Times article highlighted some questions about what a diagnosis of ADHD means. All of us have poor attention at times. How do you define when someone’s attention is so problematic that it merits a diagnostic label and treatment? How do you know who crosses “the line” into ADHD?

One problem is that the definition of ADHD is generally based on subjective criteria. For most people, the diagnosis is based on what they think about their concentration and what other people (parents, partners, teachers, etc.) think about the attention of the person in question. However, these are subjective reports and are open to interpretation. For example, the DSM criteria contain words like “often” or “easily.”

What do these words mean? Besides, the committee decides the DSM criteria and have changed over the years. Wouldn’t it be great to have an objective test, like getting a blood count for anemia?

Finding biological markers of attention is important for truly understanding ADHD and who has it. Eye tracking, which means measuring people’s eye movements, is an important new step at the forefront of objective attention measurement. Although there is not yet an FDA-approved product for ADHD, it is an area of active research:

A number of companies are developing products that use eye tracking to help see a unique way your brain pays attention.

Eye tracking has also been important in concussion diagnosis. In a concussion, there is a brain injury, which often results in abnormalities that can only be seen on eye tracking–not on MRI or CT scans. This helps people who are suffering from concussions because you can use the objective data that only the eye tracking test gives, together with your less measurable symptoms (tiredness, headache, dizziness), to better understand the injury you suffered and your brain health in general.

I am very proud to be able to offer this cutting-edge technology. I am one of the few clinicians in the Bay area to offer NeuroSync’s eye tracking system to objectively see measurements of attention and concussion.

With this device, in just a few minutes you can see poor attention objectively–you can get a measurement, a quantification, of attention. If you are an adult suffering from ADHD, wouldn’t it be amazing to see your eyes track and thereby gain an understanding that this is how your brain is working–your attention issues have not been a character flaw but instead are biological?

As a parent, if you could see how difficult it is for your child’s eyes to track, how wonderful would it be to better understand how his/her attention impacts daily life? You can also see how the medication you use (if you so choose) impacts the eye tracking–hopefully normalizing it.

I use this device for concussion diagnosis and management. It helps people see the damage that the concussion caused and tracks how people recover. It is FDA-cleared as an assessment battery to record and analyze eye movement as an aid to concussion diagnosis. EYE-SYNC^® is backed by 15 years of clinical research, some of which I contributed to.

For further questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.