Hospital and ADHD are a spectacularly unhelpful combination
We wish we could tell you hospitals were designed with ADHD brains in mind.
They weren’t.
There is waiting with no timetable, sudden interruptions, plans that change without warning, important information delivered while your brain is somewhere else, and questions that vanish the second the doctor appears.
One of the people behind The Sick List has ADHD and around twenty years of hospital life behind her.
So yes. We get it.
This is the practical stuff that can make hospital a bit easier when your brain is running on ADHD settings.
The 23-hours-and-50-minutes problem
The ward round might take ten minutes.
The trouble is, nobody can necessarily tell you which ten minutes.
“The doctor will come this morning” is not a particularly useful unit of time when waiting, sitting still and doing absolutely nothing are already difficult.
If you’re medically well enough to move around, ask what you actually need to stay for.
Do you need to be by your bed right now? Can you go for a walk? Is there a time you need to be back? Do you need to tell someone before leaving the ward? Can staff contact you if somebody arrives while you’re away?
Don’t just disappear — there may be a clinical or safety reason staff need to know where you are.
But don’t automatically assume you have to spend eight hours staring at the same curtain either.
Pack for your brain, not your fantasy self
Your hospital bag contains the things you need.
Your ADHD survival bag contains the things required to stop your brain climbing out through the window.
The trick is variety.
You may knit for eleven minutes, decide you hate knitting, do half a puzzle, watch seven minutes of something, scroll your phone, lose your headphones, find your headphones and suddenly desperately need the knitting again.
Normal service.
Useful options include puzzle books, colouring or drawing, a small craft, headphones, downloaded programmes, podcasts or audiobooks, an iPad or tablet if you have one, small games, a notebook and pens, and something very low-concentration for when your brain is fried.
And no, this is probably not the moment to pack War and Peace because you’re finally going to “get some reading done”.
A separate tote or zip bag for all this stuff helps too. Every so often, chuck everything back in it before your bedside area becomes an archaeological dig.
The plan will change
You finally get a clear plan on the ward round.
Excellent.
Ten minutes later somebody tells you something different.
Hospital plans change. Test results arrive. Another team gets involved. Priorities shift.
Knowing that does not make it any less bloody confusing.
The important thing is making sure your version of the plan has changed too.
Ask:
What is the current plan now? Has anything changed? What am I waiting for next? Can you write that down for me?
If this happens to you a lot, tell staff:
Please tell me clearly when the plan changes. I may still be working from the previous plan unless somebody explicitly tells me it has changed.
Your questions will disappear when the doctor arrives
You have spent six hours thinking:
When the doctor comes, I absolutely need to ask about that.
The doctor arrives.
Your brain:
Hello. No questions have ever existed.
Write them down somewhere obvious.
Your phone. A notebook on the bedside table. The Sick List ward-round notes sheet. Another person who knows what you wanted to ask.
Write the answers down too.
Important information has an irritating habit of sounding completely obvious while somebody is telling you and vanishing fifteen minutes later.
“Can you write that down for me?” is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask.
Find out what is fixed and what is flexible
Hospital removes a surprising amount of control from your day.
Meals. Tests. Medication. Showers. Ward rounds. When you can leave. Where you can go.
For a brain that regulates itself by moving, switching activities or doing something right now because right now is apparently the only moment it can possibly happen, that can be hard.
So ask what is genuinely fixed and what is simply the usual routine.
Can you walk while you wait? Shower later? Sit somewhere quieter? Eat at a different time? Leave the ward if you tell somebody first?
Sometimes the answer will be no.
Sometimes it will be, “Actually, yes.”
There may also be options nobody has mentioned. Some hospitals have alternative food menus, for example. In some circumstances people may be allowed short periods of leave during an admission. A quieter place to wait may exist.
None of these things is guaranteed and what is safe will depend on your care.
But asking is free.
A useful sentence is:
I find loss of autonomy difficult. If something is flexible, please tell me what choices I have.
When you need to move
Someone saying “just sit there” may not understand that sitting there is the problem.
If movement helps you regulate yourself, ask what you can safely do.
A lap of the corridor may be absolutely fine. It may not be fine after a procedure, with certain equipment attached or when staff need you nearby.
So ask rather than guessing.
If it’s medically safe, please tell me where I can walk or sit when I need movement.
Explaining this before you are climbing the walls can also prevent pacing, fidgeting or repeatedly getting up being mistaken for you simply refusing to cooperate.
Three o’clock in the morning lasts approximately seven years
Hospital nights can be especially grim.
You are exhausted.
Your brain is not.
Everyone else appears to be asleep and somehow 3am now lasts until next Thursday.
This is where the survival bag earns its keep.
Headphones. Familiar television. A podcast. Audiobook. Puzzle. Quiet craft. Anything that gives your brain enough stimulation without waking the whole bay.
A small head torch can also be surprisingly useful for reading, knitting or finding your glasses without giving everybody a lighting demonstration.
If lying in bed is making you climb the walls, ask whether it is safe to walk around and where you’re allowed to go.
Have a boring-but-safe 3am plan before your brain decides investigating mysterious hospital corridors sounds entertaining.
Other people can be a lot
Hospital can mean spending hours a few feet from people who are frightened, confused, crying or in pain.
Some people with ADHD find other people’s distress extremely difficult to tune out.
If that is you, reduce how much your brain has to process where you can: curtain round, headphones on, something familiar to watch or listen to, something absorbing to do.
If the environment has become too much, tell the nurse looking after you. There may be somewhere quieter available.
And social energy can work both ways.
You might spend three hours chatting to everybody on the ward and then suddenly become completely done with humans.
That’s allowed too.
Headphones on. Curtain round. Rest.
The rest of the ward may occasionally appreciate a commercial break anyway.
Leaving hospital requires one last functioning brain cell
Then comes discharge.
Suddenly somebody gives you medication, paperwork, appointments, instructions and three things that apparently need to happen next.
This is not an ideal moment to discover your executive function has left the building.
Before you go, get important instructions written down. Check what medication and paperwork you have. Ask what happens next and who is arranging anything still outstanding.
Then check the bed space, bathroom, plugs and every mysterious little shelf you have been using.
And perform the sacred ADHD hospital departure ritual:
Phone. Charger. Headphones. Glasses. Medication. Paperwork. Bag.
Then look again.
Because the charger is probably still in the wall.
Ask for adjustments
You do not have to wait until you are struggling badly before telling people what helps.
If ADHD has a substantial and long-term effect on everyday activities, disability protections may apply and reasonable adjustments can help remove barriers to healthcare.
What helps varies from person to person.
It might mean written information as well as spoken information, clearer warning when plans change, extra processing time, knowing what is fixed and flexible, somewhere quieter to wait if one is available, being able to move when medically safe, or having another person help you remember information.
Staff may not be able to do everything you ask.
But:
This is difficult because of my ADHD. Is there another way we can do it?
is a completely reasonable conversation to have.
We’ve made this easier to explain too
Explaining all this while you are ill, tired, overstimulated and cross is not ideal.
So we’ve made an ADHD hospital staff sheet you can give to the staff looking after you.
It covers things like movement, indefinite waiting, changing plans, written information, choices, boredom, overwhelm and what helps you cope.
You won’t need every option.
Tick the ones that sound like you.
Ignore the rest.
Because the point is not to create a perfect ADHD patient.
The point is to make hospital a little easier for the ADHD patient who actually turned up.