Relaciones entre signos motores tempranos y la posterior evolución cognitiva en niños prematuros: una revisión sistemática

Introduction

Prematurity is a growing problem because great medical advances have allowed greater survival in children born before 37 weeks of gestation, although this poses a significant risk of suffering from neurodevelopmental problems. Prematurity implies that birth occurs before the maturity of a series of neural networks essential for learning, which entails a series of problems at the level of motor and cognitive development.

Methods

A systematic review was carried out following the PRISMA model, formulating the search strategy in the Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science and Cinahl databases. Longitudinal articles were selected that measured signs of motor impairment before or during 2 years and signs of cognitive impairment after the measurement up to 12 years at most.

Results

A total of 18 articles analyzed in full text were obtained, 13 of them were selected after the search and 5 were added through external searches. The articles were organized according to their methodological quality in groups A, B and C. Given the heterogeneity, the studies were grouped into 3 groups: Short duration with early measurement (0-24 months), long duration with early measurement (less than 12 months) and long duration with early measurement at 2 years. The results show consistent relationships i

n the predictive relationship of early motor aspects on subsequent cognition when early measurements were made, with inconsistencies existing when early motor measurements are provided.

Conclusion

The results obtained point out the importance of early physiotherapy assessment of motor aspects in the premature population due to the relationship between motor signs of early alteration and cognitive evolution. It is necessary to homogenize early measures given the enormous differences detected in existing studies to more clearly delimit signs suggestive of predicting alterations.