Evaluation of Postural Control in Premature Children

Premature Birth

premature, postural control, balance

To date, it is largely unknown whether preterm children experience balance problems and whether they have normal postural control. Assuming that postural adaptation is affected after preterm delivery because it depends on attention and fine motor control, the postural control and motor development of children born preterm less than 32 weeks in the 5-7 age period will be affected compared to their healthy controls. Identifying these situations according to their healthy peers will improve the general health of premature births and enable better intervention methods to be designed.

Thanks to modern technical interventions and trained health personnel, the survival rate of premature babies has increased significantly in recent years. Neurodevelopmental abnormalities increase as birth weight and gestational week decrease and the presence of adverse biological conditions add up. Brain structures involved in fine motor control, such as the cerebellum, basal ganglia, corpus callosum, amygdala, and hippocampus, are smaller in babies born preterm, even without premature brain damage. Many of the problems associated with these in children are often difficult to detect at an early age, so numerous symptoms may not be detected until school age. In this sense, making periodic assessments of the progress in each child's motor development is essential to identifying deficiencies and thus facilitates referral to early intervention programs.

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Turkey (Türkiye)