ASSESSMENT OF GROSS MOTOR DEVELOPMENT IN INFANTS OF AGE 6 TO 18 MONTHS WITH PROTEIN ENERGY MALNUTRITION USING ALBERTA INFANT MOTOR SCALE: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY

Background and Objective: Malnutrition is one of the leading cause of death among young children of developing countries and occurs due to deficiency of essential nutrients. In infancy protein deficiency (PEM) can severely affect the different domains of development. Motor development, one of the domains of development has been previously assessed in older children with PEM and not in younger infants. Early detection of motor impairment in infants with PEM followed by early intervention will help to prevent motor delay. As AIMS is a reliable and valid tool to assess the gross motor development of younger infants, the objective of the study was to assess the gross motor development in infants with PEM using AIMS. Materials and Method: It was a cross-sectional study conducted on 200 infants of age 6 to 18 months with PEM. After recording the baseline information , the gross motor development of the infants was assessed in four different positions ie supine, prone, sitting and standing. Infants were scored as per the movements observed . After summating the subscore in all the positions total score was obtained, using this the percentile rank was calculated. Results: 74% infants belonged to < 10th percentile rank of AIMS indicating atypical motor performance and 19% infants belonged to < 25th percentile rank indicating suspected motor performance with statistical significance of p < 0.001. Conclusion: The results of our study concludes that on assessment with AIMS , infants of age 6 to 18 months with Protein Energy Malnutrition showed lower motor performance signifying delayed gross motor development.