Authors (including presenting author) :
Lee CYE(1), Wong PL(1), Chan KF(1), Koo LP(1), Lao LM(1), Mak MY(1)
Affiliation :
(1) Physiotherapy Department, Tuen Mun Hospital
Introduction :
Children with gross motor problem or Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) experience difficulties in acquiring typical childhood motor skills, which impacts their daily living. However, under the influence of COVID-19, the number of on-site training might be less than before due to infection control measures. Apart from this, parents were reluctant to bring their child to the hospital for traditional class-based training due to concern towards the pandemic. Hence, a hybrid mode of on-site and Tele-care based exercise program was launched in order to facilitate the exercise compliance and training effect in this group of children.
Objectives :
To evaluate the effectiveness of the hybrid exercise program on children aged between 4 and 12 years old with gross motor problem or DCD in terms of motor performance and quality of life (QoL)
Methodology :
Children between four to twelve years old diagnosed with gross motor problem or DCD were recruited for this study from December 2020 to May 2021. The 10-week program includes on-site physiotherapy physical assessment and exercise prescription, ZOOM sessions for home exercise review and telephone follow up for progress monitoring. Motor performance of children was evaluated Movement Assessment Battery for Children Edition -2 (MABC-2) by the same physiotherapist. QoL was evaluated by The PedsQLTM 4.0 Generic Core Scales. Upon completion, a questionnaire evaluating parental satisfaction of this program was obtained as well.
Result & Outcome :
Six children with mean age of 7.5 ± 1.1 years were recruited to join the program in 2020 to 2021. 67% of the subjects demonstrated improvement in the total standard scores upon the completion of the program. Over 50% of the subjects demonstrated an increment of at least 2 standard scores in the three subdomains of MABC-2, in which a minimal important difference of 2 standard scores in individual domain was suggested by the author. 67% of the subjects demonstrated a minimal clinically importance difference in The PedsQLTM 4.0 Generic Core Scales in both parent and child report. The improvement in both MABC-2 and The PedsQLTM 4.0 Generic Core Scales, however, did not reach statistical significance in the current study likely due to the small sample size.
