These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Movement training advances the emergence of reaching in infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age: a randomized clinical trial.
    Author: Heathcock JC, Lobo M, Galloway JC.
    Journal: Phys Ther; 2008 Mar; 88(3):310-22. PubMed ID: 18096650.
    Abstract:
    BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: This study had 2 purposes: (1) to compare the emergence of reaching in infants born full-term and infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age and (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of a movement training program on the emergence of reaching in this preterm population. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-six infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age and with a birth weight less than 2,500 g were randomly assigned to receive 20 minutes of daily movement training (PT-M group) or daily social training (PT-S group) and were compared with 13 infants born full-term (FT-S group). METHODS: Reaching and hand-object interactions were tested every other week for 8 weeks. At each visit, infants were allowed six 30-second opportunities to contact a midline toy. RESULTS: The FT-S and PT-M groups reached earlier and more consistently than the PT-S group. Specifically, the subjects in the FT-S group contacted the toy for longer durations and with an open, ventral surface of their hand. The PT-M group demonstrated increases in the number of hand-object contacts, the number of consistent reaches, and the percentage of time interacting with the toy and the surface of hand-object contact. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This project demonstrates that there are early gross motor skill differences in infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age. A caregiver-based daily training program, however, is effective at lessening some, but not all, of these differences over the short term.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]