Effects of early physiotherapy on family needs and mother’s quality of life in i·nfants with downsyndrome

Abstract

Introduction: Down syndrome is the most common autosomaldisorder resulting from a genetic discrepancy. Mothers facesome problems and stress during the early stages of Downsyndrome. The aim of this study was to examine effects ofearly physiotherapy applied on infants with Down syndromeat an early stage on family needs and life quality of mothers. Patients And Method: Twenty-three cases (10 females, 13 males)with a diagnosis of Down syndrome between 0 and 2 years ofage were included in study. Demographic data such as mater-nal age, education level, occupational status, income level, andsocial security were saved. Children’s motor skills were evalu-ated by Alberta Infant Motor Profile. Physiotherapy programswere applied for 2 weeks, 1 hour sessions per day, for 6 weeks.The Family Needs Assessment Tool was used to define familyneeds, the Beck Depression Inventory was used to assessmothers’ depression levels, and the Nottingham Health Pro-file was used to evaluate mothers’ quality of life. All assess-ments were made before and after treatment program. Results: Pretreatment and posttreatment scores of assessmentswere compared with Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test (t-test).Motor skills of children showed a statistically significantimprovement compared to pretreatment (p<0.05). Require-ments of parents decreased with all subfactors in comparisonto pretreatment (p<0.05). Similarly, depressive levels of moth-ers were statistically significantly decreased (p<0.05). Therewas a significant increase in quality of life of mothers com-pared to pretreatment (p<0.05). Conclusion: Six-week early physiotherapy program improvedmotor skills of 0 to 2-year-old children with Down syndrome,increasing quality of life of these children’s mothers whiledecreasing their depression levels and family needs.