Agreement Between Alberta Infant Motor Scale Assessment and Maternal Perception of Motor Development in Full-Term Infants.

OBJECTIVES: To verify the agreement between the Alberta Infant Motor Scale assessment and maternal perception of the motor development in full-term infants. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study involving 161 infants and mothers. Children were assessed with the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) for motor developmental classification. Mothers completed questionnaires aiming to identify maternal profiles and impressions about their children's development. The kappa test was used to analyze the concordance between AIMS and mother perceptions. RESULTS: A total of 83.2% of the sample was classified as typically developing and 16.8% as suspected or delayed development. The maternal impression indicates that 77% of infants are developing typically, 19.9% perceived their infants' development as advanced, and 3.1% delayed development. There was low agreement between the mothers' perceptions and AIMS classifications (kappa = 0.153). CONCLUSIONS: Maternal perception of their infant's development was unsatisfactory for evaluation of motor development because their perceptions did not agree with the findings of the AIMS.

Skin Temperature during Cold Pressor Test in Fibromyalgia: an Evaluation of the Autonomic Nervous System?

INTRODUCTION: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common chronic pain disorder characterized by whole-body pain and multiple symptoms. This study investigated potential dysfunctions of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) in FM patients through the measurement of the autonomic response during a cold-water test. METHODS: 23 female patients with FM and 15 healthy female controls were recruited. First, FM patients filled out the following questionnaires: PainDETECT, American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria of FM, and Profile of Mood States (POMS). Healthy controls only filled out the POMS. Subsequently, all participants immersed their forearm into 1 degrees C cold-water as long as they could tolerate for a maximum of 120 seconds. A thermographic camera recorded skin temperature and its recuperation process. RESULTS: The two groups differed significantly regarding central body temperature, forearm thermography, and peripheral (forearm)-central (ear) temperature ratio. FM patients showed less tolerance to cold water than control participants. Although total temperature decrease, cool-down rate, recuperation between 0 and 20 minutes after withdrawal showed significant intergroup differences, thermal recovery followed similar patterns in both groups. DISCUSSION: Peculiar ANS baseline characteristics are seen in FM patients. Although those patients have reduced ability to sustain low temperatures, therefore limiting extrapolation of inter-group analysis, their thermal-adaptive responses were found different as compared to controls.