Happiness may not correlate with mobility in pediatric patients with physical disabilities
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Key takeaways:
- Pediatric patients with physical disabilities had limited mobility and higher pain scores vs. typically developing youth.
- Results showed happiness did not correlate with motor function.
Although children with physical disabilities had lower health-related quality of life measures vs. their peers, results showed such patients had minimal differences in happiness that did not correlate with functional mobility.
“We need to figure out what are the factors that influence the psychosocial well-being of the youth with physical disabilities,” L. Reid Nichols, MD, FAOA, FAAOS, orthopedic surgeon at Nemours Children’s Health, Delaware, told Healio about results presented at the Combined EPOSNA Meeting. “This study emphasizes the importance of individualized care when evaluating and treating both the physical and the psychosocial needs of the youth with physical disabilities.”
Nichols and colleagues retrospectively compared parent-reported Pediatric Outcomes Data Collection Instrument (PODCI) scores between patients aged 2 to 18 years with Morquio Syndrome, arthrogryposis, achondroplasia or cerebral palsy and typically developing youth. Researchers categorized patients into groups based on age (aged 2 to 10 years vs. aged 11 to 18 years) and compared PODCI scores between each age and disability group. They also compared PODCI scores with physical therapist recorded Gross Motor Function Measure Dimension-D scores (GMFM-D), which assessed standing activities.
“There are 13 activities scored in the GMFM-D, including independent standing, single-leg balance and sit-to-stand,” Nichols said. “We compared that to the five domains of the PODCI plus the global function domain, which averages all of those scores.”
Results showed patients with Morquio syndrome, achondroplasia, arthrogryposis and cerebral palsy had limited mobility and higher pain scores compared with typically developing youth. Researchers also found children with cerebral palsy, arthrogryposis and Morquio syndrome were less happy than typically developing youth.
“If you look at the comparison of the transfer and basic mobility scores between each group, we see that the children with achondroplasia show the highest GMFM scores. They do the best with the physical functioning,” Nichols said.
According to Nichols, global functioning had good correlation with GMFM. Researchers found no correlation between happiness and motor function, as well as pain reports and gross motor function.
“Higher GMFM did not mean lower pain scores,” Nichols said. “If they were functioning better, it doesn’t mean they necessarily had less pain or more happiness.”
Editor’s note: This article was updated June 5, 2024, to clarify study outcomes. Healio regrets the error.
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Church C, et al. Paper 89. Presented at: Combined EPOSNA Meeting; May 8-11, 2024; National Harbor, Maryland.
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