Quantitative measurement of the thoracic deformity in severely mentally and physically handicapped children

Abstract

Purpose: Severely mentally and physically handicapped children usually have a decubitus posture for a long time, and tend to have scoliosis and thoracic deformity due to disproportion of myotonia and gravitational effects. It is also reported that the thorax deforms asymmetrically as scoliosis becomes severe. However, the objective evaluation of thoracic deformity has not been performed. We aimed to examine the thoracic deformity by quantitative chest compression in this study. Subjects and Methods: We used the evaluation of quantitative chest compression as proposed by Goldsmith et al. and Imagawa et al. and examined 17 adults with serious handicaps (average age 42.12 ± 9.82 years old) and 18 healthy adults (average age 40.56 ± 10.05 years old). Results: The average proportions of chest compression were 0.63 ± 0.08 in adults with serious handicaps, and 0.72 ± 0.06 in normal adults. We observed a significant difference between them. Also, a significant correlation was found between chest compression and the weights of adults with serious handicaps (r=0.463). The height and BMI were not significantly correlated with chest compression. Conclusion: The results suggest that quantitative chest compression is good at characterizing the thoracic deformity of adults with serious handicapps.