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Introduction of a method for quantitative evaluation of spontaneous motor activity development with age in infants
Catherine Disselhorst-Klug1, Franziska Heinze, Nico Breitbach-Faller
1Department of Rehabilitation and Prevention Engineering, Institute of Applied Medical Engineering, Helmholtz Institute, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstr. 20, 52074, Aachen, Germany. disselhorst-klug@hia.rwth-aachen.de
Insights
Infants develop motor skills through spontaneous movements. A new 3D analysis method objectively tracks infant foot movements to assess motor development and detect conditions like infantile cerebral palsy.
Area of Science:
- Developmental neuroscience
- Biomedical engineering
- Pediatrics
Background:
- Successful environmental interaction relies on perception-action coordination.
- Infants naturally train this coordination through spontaneous movements to understand their body's interaction with the environment.
- Motor control strategies evolve with age in infants.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce an objective method for quantitatively evaluating the development of spontaneous motor activity in newborns.
- To describe age-dependent developmental changes in healthy infants under six months old.
- To investigate the impact of pathologies on motor activity development.
Main Methods:
- Acquisition of spontaneous foot movement trajectories using 3D motion analysis.
- Calculation of specific movement parameters from acquired trajectories.
- Quantitative evaluation of motor activity development in newborns.
Main Results:
- Objective description of age-dependent developmental steps in healthy newborns younger than six months.
- Demonstration that infantile cerebral palsy significantly influences motor activity development.
- Validation of movement parameters for describing developmental progress.
Conclusions:
- The introduced methodology provides an objective and quantitative assessment of spontaneous motor activity in newborns.
- This method can track cognitive process training in infants for environmental interaction.
- It is suitable for monitoring motor development and identifying deviations in early life.
Abstract:
Coordination between perception and action is required to interact with the environment successfully. This is already trained by very young infants who perform spontaneous movements to learn how their body interacts with the environment. The strategies used by the infants for this purpose change with age. Therefore, very early progresses in action control made by the infants can be investigated by monitoring the development of spontaneous motor activity. In this paper, an objective method is introduced, which allows the quantitative evaluation of the development of spontaneous motor activity in newborns. The introduced methodology is based on the acquisition of spontaneous movement trajectories of the feet by 3D movement analysis and subsequent calculation of specific movement parameters from them. With these movement-based parameters, it was possible to provide an objective description of age-dependent developmental steps in healthy newborns younger than 6 months. Furthermore, it has been shown that pathologies like infantile cerebral palsy influence development of motor activity significantly. Since the introduced methodology is objective and quantitative, it is suitable to monitor how newborns train their cognitive processes, which will enable them to cope with their environment by motor interaction.
