Abstract
Much insight into infants’ neuromotor development can be gleaned from their spontaneous movements. Specifically, a greater understanding of neuromotor development is valuable for the early diagnosis of cerebral palsy (CP), a neurological disorder resulting from brain injury or atypical development at an early age and is characterized by impaired movement and balance. This study utilized a smartphone application to collect video data of premature infants’ movements. Focusing on the upper extremities, this study sought to identify the difference between proximal (shoulder) movements and distal (forearm and wrist) movements in infants. Distal joint movements require more direct neural connections from the cortex and global observations suggest fewer distal joint movement in infants with CP. We hypothesized that infants with CP would have a significant difference in the frequency of proximal and distal joint movements compared to typically developing infants. One-minute videos were coded with the onset and offset times of joint movements in infants’ upper extremities. Raters were blinded to the outcome of CP and used Datavyu to code active movements. Results indicated no significant difference (p = 0.12-0.78) between the average frequency of proximal and distal movements in typically developing infants versus infants with CP. However, infants with CP showed a significantly higher frequency (p < 0.01) of adduction and abduction shoulder movements compared to typically developing infants, a joint that is possibly influenced by neural connections from outside of the cortex. This study’s conclusions can contribute to a growing understanding of neuromotor development for infants with CP.