102,193 research outputs found
PRECHTL'S METHOD ON THE QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF GENERAL MOVEMENTS IN PRETERM, TERM AND YOUNG INFANTS
No full textA quick, non-invasive, non-intrusive and cost-effective method with high reliability and high validity is much in demand for the early detection of neurological anomalies which point to cerebral palsy and developmental deficits later on in life. Over his years as a distinguished developmental neurologist, Heinz Prechtl has devised such a method; a qualitative assessment of general movements (GMs) as a specific predictor for neurological impairments. His method is described in this book. GMs form part of a distinct pattern of movements in preterm babies, term newborns and young infants. They are complex, frequent, and usually of sufficient length. Changes in the normal quality of GMs are a reliable indicator of brain dysfunction. Includes a CD-ROM giving 15 cases selected from the book. Each is of about one minute in duration and demonstrates the different age-specific movement patterns
Praktische Dioptrik : als vollständige und gemeinfassliche Anleitung zur Verfertigung achromatischer Fernröhre
No full textvon Johann Joseph Prechtl : nach den neuesten Verbesserungen und Hülfsmitteln und eigenen ErfahrungenExlibrisstempel: "R. Wolf" 002281305_0001 Exemplar der ETH-BIB, Rar 2138
Posture and spontaneous motility in fullterm infants.
No full textPosture and spontaneous motor patterns during the first days of life were studied in ten healthy fullterm infants by direct observation and videorecording. The aim of the study was to provide a description of motor and postural characteristics of normal newborns. The infants were recorded for 1 h on their first and fourth day of life, when unstimulated in an incubator. Incidence and duration of the different body postures and motor patterns were scored during the replay of the videorecordings. The preference for the fully flexed posture of arms and legs described in the literature could not be confirmed. There was a large intra- and inter-individual variability in the postural repertoire. No particular posture, characteristic for each behavioural state, existed. Similar postures rarely occurred in the same infant on the first and fourth day. Extended postures more often occurred on the fourth day. Spontaneous motility consisted of several distinct movement patterns, the occurrence of which in states 1 and 2 was computed for day 1 and day 4. Motor patterns were differently related to the states. No differences were noted in the motor activity between the first and fourth days. Large inter-individual differences, but an intra-individual consistency, were found in the rates of specific motor patterns: infants who showed a low or high rate of particular movements on day 1 maintained the same characteristic on day 4. There was no overall low or high motor activity
PREDICTIVE VALUE OF GENERAL MOVEMENTS IN ASPHYXIATED FULL-TERM INFANTS
No full textThe developmental course of spontaneous motility was investigated in a group of 26 fullterm infants, affected by mild to severe hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy. Serial 1-h videorecordings were carried out from birth to 15-22 weeks and a quality assessment of general movements (GMs) was made from a replay of the videos. Neurological follow-up of the infants were continued until at least Is months of age; neonatal EEG and neuro-imaging techniques (US-scan, CT or MRI) were also carried out in all cases. The results indicate that perinatal asphyxia has important effects on the spontaneous motility of fullterm infants. Hypokinesis occurred very frequently during the first days of life, followed by a transient or prolonged (lasting longer than 15-22 weeks) abnormal quality of GMs. In the first 2 weeks the results of GM assessment did not correlate with the simultaneous findings of neurological examination, neuro-imaging and EEG, whereas they did when the results at 15-22 weeks were considered. The changes in spontaneous motility and especially GM developmental trajectories were good predictors of the neurological outcome. The predictive value of GM assessment was found to be similar to that of EEG and neuro-imaging, and better than neurological examination
Comparison between observation of spontaneous movements and neurologic examination in preterm infants
No full textObjective: The Prechtl method of qualitative assessment of general movements (GMs) has been shown to be a good predictor of neurologic outcome in fetuses, preterm infants, and term infants. The aim of this study was to compare the results of this new technique with those of traditional neurologic examination and of cranial ultrasonography in preterm infants. Methods: Serial videotape recordings (with off-line assessment of GMs), ultrasound examination of the brain, and neurologic examinations were performed from birth until about 6 months of corrected age,on a group of 66 preterm infants whose gestational age ranged from 26 to 36 weeks (mean 30.7 weeks). The agreement between the two techniques and their predictive power, with respect to the neurologic outcome at 2 years of corrected age, were evaluated for five different age groups from preterm age to 65 weeks of postmenstrual age. Results: Overall agreement of the neurologic and GM findings was 80.3% and strongly age related (lower during the preterm and term periods and higher thereafter), At all ages the results of GM observation correlated highly with neurologic outcome; they showed higher sensitivity and specificity than the neurologic examination. This held true in particular before term age, when poor neurologic responses might be related to transient complications, and at term age, mainly because of infants with normal neurologic examination results but unfavorable outcome, During the preterm period the ultrasound results showed a better specificity and a lower sensitivity to outcome than GM findings. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that quality assessment of GMs should be added to traditional neurologic assessment, neuroimaging, and other tests of preterm infants for diagnostic and prognostic purposes
QUALITATIVE CHANGES OF GENERAL MOVEMENTS IN PRETERM INFANTS WITH BRAIN-LESIONS
No full textThe aims of the study were (1) to replicate previous quantitative studies of motor activity in low-risk and high-risk preterm infants and (2) to apply a new method of systematic analysis of the qualitative characteristics of general movements in these two groups of infants. Sequential one-hour videorecordings of the unstimulated infants in the incubator were made during the preterm period and then continued during the postterm period until about 20 weeks. The high-risk group consisted only of infants with signs of haemorrhage and/or leucomalacia in the repeated ultrasonograms of the brain. The neurological follow-up continued up to a minimum of one and a maximum of three years of corrected age. The quantification of the various motor patterns in 12 matched pairs of low-risk and high-risk preterm infants revealed a slight but significant (P = 0.05) excess of isolated arm movements in the low-risk cases during the activity phase. No other movement pattern differed significantly. The qualitative assessment of general movements during the preterm period resulted in all but one of the 14 low-risk cases having a normal quality of general movements. In the lesion-group (N = 29) all the infants had an abnormal quality during the preterm period. Eight cases later became neurologically normal although 1 of them had strabism. In addition, one infant was blind (ROP) and retarded and one other had mental retardation. Nineteen infants later developed cerebral palsy (two monoplegia of a leg, three hemiplegia, 5 diplegia and 9 quadriplegia). Strabism was present in 48.3% of the whole group of 29 cases. A semi-quantitative estimation of various aspects of the abnormal general movements made a typology of abnormal patterns possible. A graphic display of developmental trajectories of individual cases, depicting the course of abnormal aspects along the time axis, helps document the evolution of abnormal signs. Their course is a better predictor of the neurological outcome than the nature and localization of the lesion, detected by imaging techniques. The qualitative assessment of general movements from videorecordings is a reliable, quick, cheap and totally non-intrusive method in neonatology for the early detection of functional impairment of the nervous system
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