Their perceptual and motor experiences determine the physical and motor development of children, and impact also on their emotional, psychosocial, and cognitive development. Our aim, therefore, was to evaluate motor development in children with congenitally malformed hearts compared to their healthy peers. We compared 194 children, with a mean age of 10.0 years, and standard deviation of 2.7 years, representing the entire spectrum of congenital cardiac disease, to a control group of 455 healthy children, having a mean age 9.6 years, with standard deviation of 2.17 years. The bodily coordination test for children was used to examine motor development. Of the children with congenitally malformed hearts, 26.8% showed moderate, and 31.9% had severe disturbances of motor development, compared to 16.5% and 5.5% of the control group, the p-value for these differences being less than 0.001. The mean motor quotient adjusted for age and gender was lower in the children with congenitally malformed hearts than in their healthy peers, at 79.6, with standard deviation of 18.9 as opposed to 96.6, with standard deviation of 15, this difference having a p-value of less than 0.001. Depending on the presence, and/or the degree, of residual sequels, the children with congenitally malformed hearts were divided into two subgroups, with either no or mild residual sequels, or with significant sequels. The mean motor quotient was lower in those with significant residual sequels, at 75, with standard deviation of 19.3, as opposed to 83, with standard deviation of 17.9, the p-value for this difference being less than 0.01. In both subgroups, the mean motor quotient was lower, with a p-value of less than 0.01, than in the control group. Our findings show that children with congenitally malformed hearts have deficits in their motor development, these being found in the presence of no or mild sequels, as well as with significant residual sequels. Parental overprotection may contribute to these findings.

Hippotherapy plus standard care, while below the threshold of a minimal clinically important difference, significantly improved balance and also fatigue, spasticity, and quality of life in MS patients.

Muscles and bones of patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) are subject to various potentially deleterious influences during growth. The aim of the present study was to analyse the outcome of bone and muscle parameters in adolescents and young adults with a spectrum of CHD. Bone and muscle parameters of the forearm were examined at two standard sites, 4% and 65%, in 29 adolescents and young adults with CHD, aged 14-24 years, by quantitative computed tomography. For the entire study population, bone and muscle parameters did not deviate significantly from the reference values except for age- and gender-corrected body height (ASDS-height: -0.6+/-1.2, p=0.01). Both age- and gender- and height- and gender-corrected (HSDS) abnormal bone mass (BMC) was found at the distal radius in patients with Fontan repair (ASDS-BMC4%: -1.5+/-0.9, p=0.008; HSDS-BMC4%: -1.2+/-1.0, p=0.05) and in those in NYHA class III (ASDS-BMC4%: -1.3+/-0.4, p=0.001; HSDS-BMC4%: -1.4+/-0.5, p=0.004). There was minimal overlap between Fontan patients (n=6) and NYHA class III (5 Fontan patients were in NYHA class I or II). In conclusion, most patients with CHD show a normal muscle and bone development in proportion to their reduced body height. Further follow-up is required to determine whether patients in a worse clinical status (NYHA III) and those with single ventricle physiology are at increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures.

Survival for up to 101 days is reported in an infant with congenital alveolar capillary dysplasia (ACD) with misalignment of pulmonary veins using inhaled nitric oxide thereby offering the prospect of survival until lung transplantation can be performed.The patient was a 3040 g Caucasian girl delivered at 39 weeks gestation. She developed cyanosis, tachypnoea, and hypoxaemia at 12 h of age. Echocardiography demonstrated atrial and ductal right-to-left shunt and suprasystemic right ventricular pressure. Following evaluation of the effect of different dosages of inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) during cardiac catheterisation, the therapeutic dose was chosen to be between 2-10 ppm, with a target O 2 saturation of 95%. Right ventricular pressure decreased from 90-110 mmHg before to 60-65 mmHg after starting NO inhalation. Mean systolic arterial blood pressure was 55-75 mmHg. Breathing rate ranged from 30 to 50/min. A sibling had died 5 years earlier at the age of 17 days from a similar clinical presentation and ACD had been diagnosed at autopsy.At the age of 23 days, an open lung biopsy was performed. Pulmonary lobules were abnormally developed and showed thickened immature septa.Alveolar capillaries were frequently located in a central position deep inside the septa and were rarely in contact with the alveolar epithelium. Pulmonary veins could be found within the bronchovascular bundles adjacent to the pulmonary arteries instead of their normal intra-acinar course away from the arterial branches (''misalignment''). Pulmonary arteries showed thickened muscular walls reflecting persistent pulmonary hypertension. In addition, prematurely muscularised arterioles were found within the pulmonary acini, the typical findings of ACD combined with misalignment of pulmonary veins (MPV). Pathological changes in ACD/MPV resemble a normal fetal lung at the canalicular stage and can therefore also be seen as an arrest of pulmonary development at this stage [3].Over a period of about 3 months the infant developed normally. The child underwent evaluation for possible lung transplantation. However, starting at the age of 13 weeks, the child developed sudden attacks of oxygen desaturation whilst breathing normally. The attacks were resistant to therapy. At the age of 101 days, the child did not recover from one of these attacks. An autopsy was not performed.The course of ACD/MPV in female siblings of one mother and two different fathers is different from the inheritance pattern in the literature and eliminates a possible recessive pedigree [5]. The first child died during the neonatal period (day 17), the second, reported here in detail, after 101 days of life, both of respiratory distress and permanent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN). When the second child showed similar symptoms after delivery, and after other causes for respiratory distress and PPHN had been ruled out, ACD/MPV was assumed, and subsequently proven.To date, ACD/MPV is a fatal disease [2,6]. Progress in lung transplantation in infants during the past years offers a therapeuti...