What question can QbTest answer?
The report includes movement, missed targets, reaction times, wrong presses, percentiles, and Q-scores. It doesn't give a simple yes or no answer for ADHD. It shows how you moved and responded during one 15- or 20-minute task. Sleep, medicines, caffeine, pain, anxiety, and the room can affect that task. The clinician compares the result with childhood history, daily problems, rating scales, and examples from school, work, and home.
Movement
How much the tracked marker moved during the task
QbActivity turns the movement path into measurements such as distance, area, and time active. It does not measure every form of restlessness or effort used to stay still.
Attention
How consistently the person noticed and answered targets
Missed targets and variation in reaction time can contribute to QbInattention. One focused appointment cannot show how attention behaves across a week of ordinary demands.
Impulse control
How often the person responded when the task rule said not to
Commission, anticipatory, or repeated responses can contribute to QbImpulsivity. Anxiety, misunderstanding, speed strategy, motor factors, and other conditions can also shape errors.
QbTest cannot establish childhood onset, six months of symptoms, impairment in two or more settings, or the reason concentration is difficult. The 2024 meta-analysis found total-score sensitivity of 0.78 and specificity of 0.70, which is not enough for stand-alone screening or diagnosis.
Save this test
Keep the raw measures and testing conditions together
Store the Q-scores and percentiles with the raw measures, norm group, sleep, medicine timing, technical notes, daily impairment, and clinician explanation. A later clinician can then compare the task with the rest of the assessment.
My Fog stores the report and context you enter. It does not calculate Q-scores, diagnose or rule out ADHD, choose medicine or dose, judge effort, or interpret an acute neurological or mental-health change.
How do age, sex, pregnancy, sleep, medicines, pain, mood, and task conditions change the report?
QbTest changes task and norm group with age. The report also uses recorded sex for comparison. Neither age nor sex creates an ADHD diagnosis, and there are no pregnancy-specific or universal older-adult QbTest cutoffs.
Children younger than 6
The standard QbTest range starts at age 6. A younger child's attention and activity need a developmental assessment using history, observation, hearing and vision review, caregiver information, and tools designed for that age. Do not place a preschool child into the 6-to-12 norm group.
Children ages 6 to 11
The child task lasts about 15 minutes and uses a go or no-go rule. The result belongs beside parent, teacher, school, developmental, sleep, learning, hearing, vision, and daily-function information. NICE supports QbTest for ages 6 to 17 only as part of standard clinical assessment.
Age 12 and teenagers
QbTech lists separate 6-to-12 and 12-to-60 versions, so age 12 sits at the version boundary. Confirm which task and norm group the clinic used. Teen assessment still needs childhood onset, behavior across settings, impairment, learning, mood, sleep, substances, and family or school information.
Adults ages 18 to 60
The adult task lasts about 20 minutes. An ADHD assessment still needs signs from childhood and problems in more than one part of life. NICE says evidence for adult QbTest use remains limited. The US FDA describes it as an aid for qualified professionals.
Women and men
The report compares performance with an age- and sex-matched group. Check which group it used. A woman with less visible movement or a man with an expected activity score can still have clinically important inattention, internal restlessness, masking, or impairment. The full assessment must not reduce sex to one movement trace.
Pregnancy and the months after birth
QbTest uses a computer, response button, and movement camera, not radiation or a blood sample. There is no pregnancy-specific score range. Record trimester or time since birth, sleep disruption, anemia or thyroid concerns, mood, pain, breastfeeding demands, and medicine status. Do not stop or restart ADHD medicine for the test without the prescriber and pregnancy team.
Adults older than 60
The current stated product range ends at 60. One selected study included ages 55 to 79, but that does not supply routine norms for every older adult. New attention or memory change later in life also needs review of sleep, hearing, vision, medicines, mood, vascular and metabolic health, and neurological causes.
What happens during QbTest, and what should you do before the appointment?
Ask whether you will take QbTest in a clinic or QbCheck on another system. Find out which age version will be used. Also ask whether this is a first assessment, a closer look at mixed results, or a before-and-after treatment check.
Ask in writing whether to take ADHD medicine as usual. If the test is meant to show an untreated baseline, the prescriber must decide whether and how medicine is handled. If it is meant to assess treatment, record the medicine name, dose as prescribed, exact time taken, and test time. Do not skip, delay, double, or stop medicine on your own.
Try to get ordinary sleep the night before and follow the clinic's caffeine instructions. Do not stay awake, overuse caffeine, fast, exercise hard, or create distress to make the result look more obvious. Record major sleep loss, illness, pain, migraine, anxiety, low mood, recent substance use, and any sedating or alerting medicine because they can change performance.
Tell the clinic about vision, hearing, color vision, movement, tremor, tics, seizures, migraine, learning, language, sensory, motor, or access needs. The test does not use reading or math. You still need to see the symbols, understand the rule, press a button, and sit safely.
Wear comfortable clothing and ask the clinic whether reflective clothing, jewelry, hair accessories, or head coverings affect its marker and camera setup. Bring glasses or hearing aids normally used for computer tasks.
Bring childhood and school history, examples from home, work, or education, rating scales, your medicine list, and your sleep pattern. Add the names of people who can describe you in another setting. The computer report does not contain that history.
The clinic chooses the age task
The 6-to-12 version uses a simple go or no-go task for about 15 minutes. The 12-to-60 version uses matching shape and color sequences for about 20 minutes. At age 12, confirm which version and norm group the clinic used.
A marker and camera measure movement
The person wears a reflective marker and responds with a button while an infrared camera tracks the marker's position. The manufacturer says the camera records movement data and doesn't record a video image of the person.
The report separates three domains
QbActivity summarizes movement. QbInattention draws on missed targets and response-time consistency. QbImpulsivity draws on presses to non-targets, anticipatory presses, or repeated responses. Keep the underlying measures. A total label isn't enough.
The clinician adds the rest of the assessment
Clinicians read the report beside interview, developmental history, impairment, behavior in more than one setting, observer information, rating scales, mental state, sleep, medicines, and competing diagnoses. A report should not be used alone to accept or reject someone for ADHD care.
What do QbTest scores and percentiles mean?
First confirm that the task was technically valid and identify its version. Review the raw movement and response measures before the domain scores, Q-scores, percentiles, or total. Interpret those figures only after checking the norm group, sleep, medicine timing, childhood history, impairment, observer information, and other possible causes.
The task or report is not usable
Incomplete, invalid, technically limited, or wrong age version
Do not interpret the Q-scores as if the task were usable. Save the reason, such as misunderstood instructions, vision or movement difficulty, equipment problem, interruption, acute illness, extreme sleep loss, or an age and norm mismatch. Ask whether a repeat or another assessment method would answer the question better.
Scores are near the reference group
Q-scores around -1.0 to +1.0, or the report's expected range
Performance was near the age- and sex-matched group on this task. ADHD or daily planning problems may still appear outside a quiet, structured test.
The profile is mixed or slightly atypical
Q-score 1.1 to 1.4, mixed domains, or a score close to the report threshold
Published QbTest material often calls this slightly atypical. Read which raw measure created it and whether the other domains, testing conditions, history, and daily impairment agree. Do not turn a borderline label into a diagnosis or a personal target.
One or more domains are atypical
Q-score 1.5 or higher, about the 93rd percentile, on one or more reported domains
The performance was atypical relative to the named comparison group. It supports a closer clinical explanation of activity, missed responses, response-time variation, or impulse-control errors.
The 93rd percentile is not a 93 percent chance of ADHD
A Q-score of 1.5 means the measured behavior was about 1.5 standard deviations above the named reference group, around the 93rd percentile. It does not say how severe ADHD is, prove a diagnosis, or show that ADHD explains brain fog. A normal percentile cannot rule ADHD out either.
See research details
Read Q-scores beside the raw measures, norm group, technical validity, daily impairment, age, sex, and the rest of the clinical assessment.
Ask which raw measure produced each QbActivity, QbInattention, or QbImpulsivity result. Two people can receive a similar summary score through different behavior during the task.
Use the report version and clinic interpretation. A percentile describes task performance relative to a norm group. It is not the probability of ADHD and is not a severity grade.
Those figures explain why an ordinary score cannot rule ADHD out and an atypical score cannot confirm it. The review concluded that QbTest shouldn't be used alone for screening, diagnosis, or setting waiting-list priority.
This shows that adding information can speed a service decision. It does not show that the QbTest alone made the diagnosis or that it improves every adult pathway.
A UK adult service may still use the device where regulators allow it, but NICE's recommendation for ages 6 to 17 doesn't cover adults.
QbTest is FDA cleared, not approved. It's an aid for qualified professionals within a full assessment.
A repeated report can support a treatment conversation. It cannot select a medicine or dose without symptoms, daily function, side effects, physical monitoring, and prescriber judgment.
Keep the QbTest report beside real examples from home, school, work, relationships, money, driving, and task completion. A normal office task cannot erase repeated impairment elsewhere.
The current manufacturer range ends at age 60. A research sample above 60 does not create routine older-adult norms or separate ADHD from sleep, mood, medicine, vascular, sensory, or neurodegenerative causes of new attention change.
Check which sex reference group the report used, but keep one activity score from overriding inattentive symptoms, masking, internal restlessness, childhood history, or impairment. The study doesn't prove that the whole assessment is bias free.
Prepare useful evidence without trying to force the score
You do not need to train for QbTest or prove that concentration is hard. Keep the test conditions ordinary and bring examples the computer cannot see, such as unfinished tasks, lost time, impulsive decisions, or work and school problems.
Keep a seven-day context note
Record sleep, naps, caffeine, alcohol or cannabis, illness, pain, migraine, stress, and ADHD medicine timing. Note when focus was clearly better or worse. Keep the note short enough to bring to the visit.
Bring three ordinary failures
Choose one example from starting or finishing a task, one from losing time or information, and one from interrupting, fidgeting, or acting before thinking. Add what happened at home, school, work, driving, money, or relationships and what support helped.
Use your ordinary supports
Keep using calendars, alarms, visible lists, written steps, a fixed place for essentials, quieter work space, body doubling, and planned breaks if they help. The assessment should learn what daily life costs and what improves it, not require you to struggle without support for weeks.
Ask for the full report explanation
Ask which raw measures changed each score and which age and sex group was used. Check whether the task was valid. Then ask what the score supports and what decision it changed.
Do not rehearse the task, miss targets on purpose, force yourself still, stay awake, overuse caffeine, skip food, or use unprescribed stimulants. Do not change prescribed medicine to force a result. A sudden brain or mental-health danger needs direct care.
What should you keep with a QbTest report?
Keep these together
- QbTest or QbCheck product, software or report version, clinic, date, start time, and purpose
- Child or adolescent and adult task, age at testing, and exact age and sex norm group
- Sleep duration and quality, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, food, exercise, illness, pain, migraine, anxiety, and mood near the task
- ADHD and other medicines, dose as prescribed, exact time taken, and whether the plan was on-treatment or untreated baseline
- Vision, hearing, color-vision, language, learning, motor, tic, tremor, sensory, and access needs
- Technical validity, interruptions, misunderstood instructions, stopped test, camera or marker problem, and clinician observations
- Raw movement measures, correct responses, omission errors, commission errors, anticipatory or repeated responses, reaction time, and reaction-time variation
- QbActivity, QbInattention, QbImpulsivity, Q-Total if reported, Q-scores, percentiles, labels, and report graphs
- Childhood and school history, current impairment, affected settings, observer reports, rating scales, and competing explanations
- Clinician interpretation, diagnosis considered, decision, support or treatment plan, and what the result did and did not change
- For a repeat, the reason, interval, version, medicine and timing, test conditions, symptoms, daily function, side effects, and prescriber interpretation
Question for the visit
“Ask which raw measures changed each score, whether the test conditions and norm group were appropriate, where the result agrees or disagrees with daily life, and what clinical decision it changes without being used alone to diagnose or rule out ADHD.”
Sources for QbTest for ADHD: Procedure and Results
Device components, go or no-go task with motion capture, intended use as an aid, and qualified-professional interpretation
Current 6-to-60 product range, 20-minute overview, motion tracking, age and sex comparison, report purpose, and stand-alone limit
Child and adolescent or adult tasks, marker and camera setup, response button, report graphs, privacy, language, and color-vision information
Raw scores, Q-scores, percentiles, standard and detailed reports, and clinical-information boundary
Ages 6 to 17 recommendation with standard assessment, adult and treatment-response research limits, and evidence rationale
No single-test boundary, look-alike conditions, medical review, and information across settings
Clinical interview, medical and psychological assessment, childhood onset, duration, settings, impairment, and sleep or mental-health context
Fifteen-study, 2,058-participant QbTest diagnostic-accuracy meta-analysis with sensitivity, specificity, AUC values, and stand-alone limit
Mixed-methods systematic review of pathway impact, experience, adult evidence gaps, and medication-management limits
AQUA randomized trial, 250 analyzed young people, six-month diagnostic-decision figures, and clinician-confidence context
Selected ages 55-to-79 study, QbTest and combined self-report classification figures, and older-adult limits
Q-score and percentile explanation, common report labels, and medication-monitoring review limits
Large adult QbTest dataset, sex-related activity findings, and limits of movement-based assumptions
Current Health Technology Assessment, diagnostic pathway evidence, threshold variation, and remaining research gaps
See each claim's sources
indication
FDA 510(k) K040894 clears QbTest to provide objective measurements of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention that aid clinical ADHD assessment and are interpreted by qualified professionals.procedure
QbTest combines a computer response task with infrared motion tracking; the child task is about 15 minutes and the adolescent and adult task about 20 minutes.procedure
The report provides activity, inattention, and impulsivity measures with raw scores, percentiles, and Q-scores compared with age- and sex-matched normative data.range
Published QbTest materials commonly treat -1.0 to +1.0 as expected performance, 1.1 to 1.4 as slightly atypical, and 1.5 or higher, about the 93rd percentile, as atypical, while these labels are not diagnostic cutoffs.limitation
Bellato 2024 pooled 15 studies and 2,058 participants, finding QbTest Total sensitivity 0.78, specificity 0.70, and moderate rather than stand-alone diagnostic discrimination.interpretation
In the AQUA trial, 94 of 123 participants with visible QbTest information and 76 of 127 with withheld information had a diagnostic decision within six months.context
NICE 2024 recommends QbTest as an option for ages 6 to 17 only with standard clinical assessment, while adult diagnostic use and treatment-response use need more research.limitation
There is no single test for ADHD; diagnosis requires clinical history, impairment, information across settings, and review of other conditions that can resemble ADHD.limitation
The 2025 Tomlinson review found possible pathway benefits but insufficient good-quality evidence for medication selection, titration, long-term monitoring, adults, and unresolved complex cases.context
A selected study of 97 older adults with ADHD and 112 controls aged 55 to 79 reported 70 percent QbTest classification and 91 percent when combined with self-report, but this does not extend the current routine product range beyond age 60.context
Wettstein 2024 found sex-related activity differences in a large adult QbTest dataset, supporting use of the named sex reference group without allowing one activity score to override the full assessment.preparation
Current patient preparation material advises ordinary sleep, avoiding excessive caffeine, and taking ADHD medicine as directed when the clinic intends an on-treatment test.