Comparison of active motor items in infants born preterm and infants born full term

Area of Science:

• Neonatal development
• Developmental pediatrics
• Motor assessment

Background:

• Infants born very preterm, very low birth weight (VPT-VLBW) are at risk for developmental delays.
• Standardized motor assessments are crucial for early identification of potential issues.
• Objective evaluation methods are needed to accurately assess motor function in VPT-VLBW infants.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare active motor item performance at term age between infants born VPT-VLBW without impairments and healthy full-term (FT) infants.
• To evaluate the reliability of a novel assessment method using video recordings and computer software for motor item analysis.

Main Methods:

• Video recordings were obtained for 29 VPT-VLBW infants and 22 FT infants at term age.
• Specific motor items assessed included head lag, head righting, head control in sitting, and hip flexion in prone.
• Motor items were analyzed using digitizing computer software for quantitative evaluation.

Main Results:

• VPT-VLBW infants exhibited significantly less head lag during pull-to-sit compared to FT infants (p = 0.005).
• No significant differences were observed in other assessed motor items between the two groups.
• The video-based assessment method demonstrated high intrarater reliability, with intraclass correlation coefficients ranging from 0.77 to 0.997.

Conclusions:

• At term age, VPT-VLBW infants classified as 'low risk' demonstrate comparable performance on key active motor items to healthy FT infants.
• The high reliability of the measurement method supports its potential for further development and clinical application.
• This study suggests that early motor assessments can identify subtle differences and confirm typical development in specific VPT-VLBW subgroups.