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Introduction of a method for quantitative evaluation of spontaneous motor activity development with age in infants

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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.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG, DI 596/5-1).

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None declared.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rehabilitation and Prevention Engineering, Institute of Applied Medical Engineering, Helmholtz Institute, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstr. 20, 52074, Aachen, Germany

    Catherine Disselhorst-Klug & Franziska Heinze

  2. Social Pediatric Centre, Klinikum Esslingen, Esslingen, Germany

    Nico Breitbach-Faller

  3. Institute of Applied Medical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Thomas Schmitz-Rode

  4. Helmholtz Institute for Biomedical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Günter Rau

Authors
  1. Catherine Disselhorst-Klug
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  2. Franziska Heinze
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  3. Nico Breitbach-Faller
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  4. Thomas Schmitz-Rode
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  5. Günter Rau
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Correspondence to Catherine Disselhorst-Klug.

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Disselhorst-Klug, C., Heinze, F., Breitbach-Faller, N. et al. Introduction of a method for quantitative evaluation of spontaneous motor activity development with age in infants. Exp Brain Res 218, 305–313 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3015-x

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