Abstract
Background and Aims: Difficulty in fine motor dexterity and visual-motor skills could be possible in children with oncohematological diseases. This study aims to: 1. Assess the fine-motor and visuo-spatial skills in pediatric patients; 2. Evaluate the possible efficacy of a strengthening intervention to promote the acquisition of manual dexterity, strength in the hands and to enhance grapho-motor skills.
Methods: Participants were 53 children with leukemia, 26 girls and 27 boys, with an average age of 5.86 years (SD = 2.04) recruited at the Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplant Center (University of Padua). They are Caucasian (75.5%) and all non-Caucasian speaking Italian. Children were assessed with the manual dexterity scale from the MABC-2 and with VMI pre and post-intervention and also healthy peers were assessed adopting the same instruments. A part of them was been enhanced (N=9), while another part no (N=9).
Results: Paired samples t-tests showed significant differences comparing clinical and control groups in the VMI standardized scores (t=−4.58, p=0.0001), with the clinic group with a worse performance (M = 108.73; SD=16.01) than the healthy one (M=123.75, SD=16.62). Hierarchical regression model was run to identify the possible predictors on the standard Movement scores (R2 = 0.38, F (39) = 7.55, p =0.01) with gender (β = 0.38, p = 0.022), ethnicity (β = −41, p = 0.004), and the presence / absence of siblings (β = 0.37, p = 0.01) that influenced standard Movement scores. A repeated measures ANOVA test was performed to investigate the efficacy of the strengthening activities on Motor skills. Results showed that the effect of time with the presence of strengthening was significant for Movement (F=6.31, p=0.02, np2=0.33; b=0.64) and VMI scores (F=22.83, p<0.001, np2=0.65; b=0.99) unlike the time effect alone didn't impact significantly.
Conclusions: Specific motor psycho-educative programs should be implemented for the pediatric patients more at risk.