Impact of physiotherapy on neuromotor development of premature newborns

Abstract

Introduction: The population of children born prematurely has increased in line with improving the quality of perinatal care. It is essential to ensure to these children a healthy development. Objective: We evaluate the neuromotor development of a group of preterm infants regularly assisted by a physiotherapy service in comparison to full-term newborns, checking, so the impact of the service. Materials and methods: We randomly assigned preterm and full-term infants that formed two distinct groups. The group of preterm infants was inserted into a monitoring program of physiotherapy while the other infants were taken as a control group not receiving any assistance in physiotherapy. The groups were compared using the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) at fortyweek, four and six months of corrected gestational age and the scores were compared using Student´s t-test, assuming a significance level of 5% (p < 0.05). Results: The preterm group had significantly lower scores at 40th week compared to the control group, but subsequent scores showed no significant differences between the two groups. Conclusion: The timely and adequate stimulation was efficient to promote the motor development of premature infants included in a follow up clinic.