The Study of Effect for General Movements Assessment in the Diagnosis of Neurological Development Disorders: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Objective: To discuss the value of general movements assessment in predicting the neurological disorders.

Methods: Using PubMed as the search engine, we searched to identify relevant studies in English and Chinese language published up to November 2014 and 19 studies were selected. Standard methods in meta-analyses were used to provide diagnostic accuracy by Meta-DiSc 1.4.

Results: For non-cerebral palsy (non-CP) as outcome for writhing period, the results suggested a good sensitivity and a specificity of 0.74, the Q-value was 0.80. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.87. For non-CP as outcome for fidgety period, the results suggested both high level for sensitivity and specificity. And the Q-value was 0.914, the AUC was 0.9664. For CP as outcome for writhing and fidgety periods, good sensitivity and specificity were found in the analysis, and the Q-value was 0.9034 while the AUC was 0.9592.

Conclusion: General movements assessment is a good predictor for diagnosing neurological disorders.

Keywords: cerebral palsy; general movements; meta-analysis; neurodevelopment.