A walk in park helps ADHD child to focus

URBANA, Ill., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers suggest a walk in the park improves the focus in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Andrea Faber Taylor and Frances E. Kuo said children with ADHD have a lack of concentration, therefore doing homework or taking a test can be very difficult. A simple, inexpensive remedy may be a "dose of nature," they said.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign study shows that children with ADHD demonstrate greater attention after a 20-minute walk in a park than after a similar walk in a downtown area or a residential neighborhood.

"What this particular study tells us is that the physical environment matters," Kuo said in a statement.

"We don't know what it is about the park, exactly -- the greenness or lack of buildings -- that seems to improve attention, but the study tells us that even though everything else was the same -- who the child was with, the levels of noise, the length of time, the time of day, whether the child was on medication -- if we kept everything else the same, we just changed the environment, we still saw a measurable difference in children's symptoms. And that's completely new."

The findings are published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.