Gross Motor, Physical Activity and Musculoskeletal Disorder Evaluation Tools for Rett Syndrome: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

In recent years, much attention has been paid to motor impairment of persons with Rett Syndrome (RTT), with increasing literature aimed to describe gross motor functioning and musculoskeletal disorders of the RTT population. The aim of this systematic review is to describe clinical evaluation tools used in the last decade to assess motor functioning and musculoskeletal abnormalities of patients with RTT. Thirty-four studies were reviewed and 20 tools were presented. Results showed that only two tools were used to measure functional change after rehabilitative or therapeutic interventions. This review underlies the lack of adequate evaluation tools to assess musculoskeletal abnormalities and deformities in RTT population. The absence of these assessments could be due to a statistical difficulty as it is challenging to build an evaluation tool that can score the entities of the abnormalities related to the amount of disability they cause.

KEYWORDS:

• Rett syndrome
• motor assessment
• gross motor functioning
• physical activity
• musculoskeletal disorder
• evaluation tools

Acknowledgments

We want to thank the Italian Rett Syndrome Association for having founded and funded our research team and for the continuous commitment in research to improve the quality of life of individuals with RTT.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Italian Rett Syndrome Association.