No kind of exercise clearly eased attention problems in children with ADHD.

The review

1. 01

   Who took part

   The studies had children with ADHD, who were on average 16 or younger. The paper does not give a total, but the groups ranged from 5 to 104 children.

2. 02

   What they did

   Each study tested one kind of exercise. It was compared with another exercise, or with no treatment, medicine or a thinking-skills programme. Kinds included water exercise, horse riding, aerobic exercise and training that mixes movement and thinking. Programmes lasted from one to 20 weeks.

3. 03

   What happened

   Brain games with moving helped working memory more than aerobic exercise did. No kind of exercise clearly beat the others on attention problems. Across the checks, between about half and nearly all trials were low risk of bias.

What the review found

1. No difference

   Across 14 trials, no kind of exercise cut attention problems more than the others did.

   Pooled analysis of 14 studies · vs other exercise, medicine, a thinking-skills programme or no treatment · ⚠ whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

2. Helped

   Brain games with moving helped working memory more than aerobic exercise did.

   Pooled analysis of 10 studies · vs traditional aerobic exercise · ⚠ whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

Source