The Use of Motor Milestones to Determine Retrospectively the Clinical Onset of Disease

Abstract

SYNOPSIS The technique of determining a child's age when clinical disease is first manifest is described formally. Single or selected motor milestones are used in a manner different from that encompassing general developmental testing to formulate age for diagnostic or prospective use. By the use of such motor milestones, together with appropriate frequency distribution curves and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease in question, objective data can be collected which is not obtainable by other means. Its use is of particular relevance to the clinical management of infants and children who are known to be at risk from genetically determined neuromuscular disease of all types; and to nosological research in paediatrics. The method is of special value clinically in the management of those diseases whose prognosis is correlated with the child's age when clinical onset of the disease first becomes manifest.