Improvement in motor development following surgery for infantile esotropia
Presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, Seattle, Washington, April 11-15, 2007.
Received 10 April 2007; accepted 17 August 2007. published online 14 December 2007.
Purpose
Infantile esotropia is associated with abnormal visual development and thus may delay the achievement of developmental milestones. Although early surgery can improve visual function, less is known about its effect on motor development. Here we address whether early surgery can improve motor development.
Methods
Recently, our lab devised the Infant Developmental Skills Survey, a 25-item questionnaire designed to assess sensorimotor and gross motor development. The questionnaire was completed by the parents of 3- to 10-month-old patients with infantile esotropia prior to surgery (n = 143) and the parents of 6- to 11-month-old patients following surgery (n = 58). A subset of parents (n = 40) completed the questionnaire both before and after surgery. For comparison, the questionnaire was completed by the parents of infants with normal ocular alignment (n = 194).
Results
Before surgery 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 9-, and 10-month-old patients showed delayed achievement of sensorimotor milestones (p < 0.01), and 5-, 9-, and 10-month-old patients demonstrated delayed attainment of gross motor milestones (p < 0.05) compared with normal children. However, following surgery, patients demonstrated a greater rate of sensorimotor development than age-matched controls (p < 0.0001) and caught up with normal children on both sensorimotor and gross motor skills.
Conclusions
Prior to surgery, patients with infantile esotropia were delayed in their achievement of developmental milestones. However, following surgery, a comparison group of patients showed rapid development and possessed motor skills comparable to those of normal children, suggesting that early surgery is beneficial to both visual and motor development.
aRetina Foundation of the Southwest, Dallas, Texas
bDepartment of Ophthalmology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
Reprint requests: James R. Drover, PhD, Retina Foundation of the Southwest, 9900 N. Central Expressway, Suite 400, Dallas, TX 75231.
This research was supported by a grant from the National Eye Institute (EY05236).
This study was conducted at the Retina Foundation of the Southwest.
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
ABSTRACT
