The Need for a Motor Assessment Tool for Children with Autism-An Opinion Article.

There is a lot of evidence that early developmental therapy achieves impressive therapeutic results for those who require it. Therefore, developmental follow-up, which includes the process of monitoring the child's development over time, makes it possible to identify possible developmental problems and treat them from a young age. This assumption is true in relation to all children with developmental difficulties but is mainly true in the context of children with a diagnosis of autism. However, despite the abundance of developmental scales for the neurotypical population, there are currently no valid scales for assessing motor function for children with autism. The current article focuses on the presentation of the motor delay, identified according to the literature, in many of the children with autism and requires the provision of professional and compatible treatment for these children. This motor delay and the lack of a motor assessment tool for children with autism raises the need for an adapted motor developmental assessment tool, which will produce measurable results, to enable the monitoring of the aforementioned disability and the receiving of tailored treatment from the physiotherapists who deal with the development of children with autism at an early age. The article reviews common existing assessment tools for use in assessing normal development in children with autism, presents the limitations and the challenges that arise when using these assessment tools with children on the autism spectrum and presents the need for a new developmental assessment tool that will be built and validated specifically for children with autism.

Plasma antioxidant status and cell injury after severe physical exercise.

Strenuous exercise leads to an increase in metabolic rate, increased production of reactive oxygen species, and compromised antioxidant defense systems. To study the effects of oxidative stress during strenuous exercise, a homogeneous group of 31 male subjects participated in a 6-month, 5 days/week training schedule involving two extreme marches of 50 km and 80 km at sea level, separated by 2 weeks of regular training. Each participant carried 35 kg of extra weight. Blood samples were drawn immediately before and after each march. Twenty-nine subjects completed the 50-km march, and only 16 completed the 80-km march. Plasma levels of reduced ascorbic acid, total ascorbate, and dehydroascorbate did not undergo significant changes during either march. However, the 50- and 80-km marches led to 25% and 37% increases, respectively, in plasma levels of uric acid; due presumably to increases in the metabolic rate and consequent pyrimidine nucleotide metabolism. Both marches led to an approximately 10-fold increase leakage of creatine phosphokinase into the plasma. Likewise, plasma levels of aspartate transaminase, a characteristic marker of liver injury, increased approximately 4-fold. Plasma levels of bilirubin, creatine, urea, and glucose also increased. Plasma protein carbonyl content, a marker of protein oxidative damage, decreased significantly during each march. These results are discussed with respect to the consideration that elevation of the respiration rate during exercise leads to production of more reactive oxygen species than the antioxidant systems can scavenge. Plausible explanations for leakage of molecules into the plasma are discussed.