Symptoms and Causes of Lethargy in Children
Lethargy is the feeling of slowness, sluggishness, tiredness, drowsiness, malaise, listlessness or weakness. The lethargy in children or infants may indicate a serious medical condition and need prompt medical investigation. Lethargy in children may be due to different causes, may it be physical or mental. The causes are needed to be found out before starting any medication. Observation of such child should be done minutely.
Lethargic children symptoms
The infant or child looks at very low energy level and very tired for long period. He or she will move very slowly without much interest in toys or feel sleepy all the time.
There are many symptoms similar to this, which may be the indication of an alarming stage of any mental or physical disorder.
Common causes of lethargy in child
Child may be lethargic due to lack of sleep, anemia, fever, malnutrition, depression, meningitis, insomnia, sleep apnea, panic attack, down’s syndrome, stress, any kind of phobia, etc. Any serious disease like brain injury, liver problem and other bodily disorders can make the child lethargic at initial stage. Fever is a common cause of lethargy in children, therefore whenever you feel your child is lethargic, immediately check the fever with thermometer.
Lethargy treatments
At very first, the actual cause for the lethargic child should be found. There are many medications that can be prescribed for the kid’s lethargy, but doctor must be consulted before starting treatment after having known the real causes of the problem. There are different analgesics that are available in the market but usually paracetamol syrup or tablets are advised to be given with water, because correct dose of this medicine has no side effects on the kids.
Give your child green leafy vegetables to make the immune system quite strong to keep the child away from any kind of ailments. As home remedy, vitamin-C can be given regularly in the form of Amla (Indian gooseberry), orange, lemon or any other source to make the immunity strong. Ferrous sulfate, folic acid and ferrous gluconate may be given to the child to keep the child free of such ailments.
Prevention
The children should be advised to make a habit to play regularly to keep his/her body active to get freedom from lethargy. Do not make the child book worm and advise the child to take part in all activities. Give the child proper diet to avoid anemia. Balanced diet should be given and outing be planned in advance to give to the child all opportunities to get mixed up with all the children. Try to avoid to leave the child alone and not to let him go into depression to keep the child healthy and brainy as well.
Precautions
- Make his schooling to relax and not to get burdened.
- Never leave the child alone but allow him to get mixed up with others.
- Treat him as your friend to share the views
- Don’t let him get anemic.
- Check his sleep problem.
- Get him checked up regularly.
- Start the treatment immediately on knowing his problem.