Early Pain Finding in Infants With Brachial Plexus Birth Injury

Summary

In Brachail Plexus Birth Palsy (BPBI), fractures, glenohumeral joint dislocation, torticollis and plagiocephaly, facial nerve palsy, phrenic nerve palsy, obesity, speech delay, integumentary system problems, and central nervous system disorders are common comorbidities. Clinical assessments such as observation, palpation, and radiologic imaging are commonly used to identify early period comorbidities after delivery .Since fractures or joint deformities may occur in the affected upper extremity due to high-energy trauma at birth, pain assessment in the early postnatal period is recommended and several objective assessment methods have been proposed. Due to the difficulty of pain assessment in early childhood, the assessment is mostly performed by palpation. Pain is suspected if the baby grimaces with light palpation of the neck and upper shoulder area.

Although some hospitals have adopted objective assessment of pain and objective assessment is recommended, the level of pain in early childhood has not been investigated. Therefore, the aim of our study was to determine the level of pain in BPBI in early childhood and to examine the relationship between pain and motor function. In addition, the second aim of the study is to determine the cut-off value of the pain level that may be a sign of fracture in patients with BPBI, in order to suspect a fracture in the shoulder region and request additional examinations.

The diagnosis of BPBI, determination of Narakas classification and evaluation of comorbidities were performed by a senior orthopedic surgeon. After the initial doctor's examination, patients are routinely referred to the physiotherapy clinic for a physiotherapy evaluation.In the assessment, active joint movement and pain assessments of children were used, and all of these assessments were performed by a hand and pediatric physiotherapist.

Conditions

• Brachial Plexus Palsy

Interventions

OTHER

Observational pain and motor function assessments, and also comorbidities assessments with x-ray.

There was no intervention in our study, only observational and quantitative clinical evaluations.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Hacettepe University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Kıvanç Delioğlu, Assist Prof · Hacettepe University

• Akin Uzumcugil, Assoc Prof · Hacettepe University

• Ebru Ozturk, PhD · Hacettepe University

• Mintaze Kerem, Professor · Hacettepe University

Eligibility

Min Age

15 Days

Max Age

90 Days

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-01-01

Primary Completion

2023-06-01

Completion

2023-06-01

Countries

• Turkey (Türkiye)

Study Locations