Original articleThe Quality of the Early Motor Repertoire in Preterm Infants Predicts Minor Neurologic Dysfunction at School Age
Section snippets
Subjects
The study group comprised 82 infants (50 boys and 32 girls) born preterm between September 1992 and October 1997 and admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the Beatrix Children's Hospital of the University Medical Center of Groningen. The infants were members of a larger group of 99 infants who were included in prospective studies of the prognostic value of the quality of GMs for neurologic and developmental findings. The results of these studies have been reported previously.5,
Neurologic and Movement ABC Findings at School Age
At age 7 to 11 years, 15 children had developed CP (5 unilateral, 8 bilateral, 2 dyskinetic). Of the remaining 67 children, 36 were neurologically normal, 13 had simple MND, and 18 had complex MND. Most children with complex MND had abnormalities in the clusters coordination/ balance and fine manipulative ability. This combination of abnormal clusters was present in only 3 of the children with simple MND.
All clusters of the neurologic test except reflexes correlated significantly with the
Discussion
In children born preterm, the quality of the motor repertoire at 11 to 16 weeks postterm is related to clinically relevant MND (complex MND) at age 7 to 11 years. Both characteristics predictive for an abnormal outcome and characteristics predictive for a normal outcome were identified. Indicative for an abnormal outcome was the presence of abnormal FMs, which was followed by complex MND in nearly 67% of the cases. Features that were predictive of normal findings at school age were normal FMs
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