Aplicação do General Movements Assessment, através do seu checklist, em uma população de lactentes de risco de hospital universitário no Espírito Santo

Abstract

Introduction: Child development is a complex process and presents several risk factors, such as poverty, malnutrition and prematurity. There is sufficient evidence that the earlier the diagnosis and intervention, the smaller the impact of these factors on the development and future life of the child. The General Movements Assessment (GMA) and its checklist are reliable tools for early detection of Cerebral Palsy (CP) and qualitatively and quantitatively assess, respectively, the baby's movements. For this reason, both are applied in the Follow-up program at the Cassiano Antônio de Morais University Hospital (HUCAM-ES), along with other evaluation scales, so that CP can be detected as early as possible. Objectives: To evaluate, through the GMA checklist, the spontaneous movement of infants from the follow-up service of the University Hospital in Espírito Santo (ES), Brazil. Methods: Observational cross-sectional study with a quali-quantitative approach. Infants with up to 5 weeks of corrected age, from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and referred for follow-up at the University Hospital in ES, participated. The General Movements (GMs) checklist was evaluated according to Prechlt's GMA, by recording the Writhing Movements (WM) phase and applying them. A form was prepared for the collection of pre, peri and postnatal data “from the participants”. Results: The videos of 13 babies were analyzed using the checklist, all in the WM phase (0-5s), with 76.93% (10 patients) being classified as having a Poor Repertory (PR) and 23.07% (3 patients) as Normal. As for the score, the average was 18.5 points (between 12 and 25, in a total of 26 points on the checklist), with the three Normals scoring more than 20 points and the 10 PR scoring below that. Conclusion: It was verified through the application of the checklist that most of the patients accompanied in HUCAM in the WM phase presented RP. The GMs checklist is an easy-to-apply tool and therefore recommendedfor new GMs