Abstract
Background and objective: Children with neurological Impairment which have sever disability are high risk for high rate of respiratory problems. There are some reasons such as recurrent aspiration due to motor dysfunction of oropharynx or Gastro esophageal reflux and poor cough or airway clearance and respiratory muscle weakness for above mentioned problems.
A study in Canada indicated that from 228 children with recurrent pneumonia 220 (92%) of them had an underlying disorders. 114 (47/9%) of them were involved with Aspiration syndrome secondary to discoordination of orophayngeal muscles, which has lead to poor clearance of respiratory tract.
in these patients, cerebral palsy accounted for nearly half of the cases.
In the other hand in neuromuscular disorders, reduced muscular strength can result in respiratory muscles involvement. Regardless of silent trend, respiratory failure is the leading cause of mortality in spinal muscular dystrophy, Duchene, myasthenia gravis and congenital myotonic dystrophy.
This study was aimed to recognize the prevalence and Type of pulmonary involvement in patients with neurological impairment who had been hospitalized in Tabriz Children Hospital.
Materials and methods: in a Comparative – Cross sectional study from September 2001 to September 2005, fifty patients with different types of neurological disorders were compared with fifty patients who were hospitalized due to other Diseases.
Two group were matched for age and gender. The results were analyzed with chi-square.
Results: The findings indicate that pulmonary involvement in case group has higher prevalence than control (P=0.0002). at the same time in pulmonary collapse with ( P=0.01) consolidation (P=0.003), Bilateral pulmonary involvement (P=0.04) there is significant difference between two groups.
Conclusion: Patients with neuromuscular disorders have high rate of respiratory problems which are silent and the diagnosis may be delayed. It is advised that enough attention should be payed to prevent aspiration. Chest physiotherapy and suitable nutritional and antibiotic intervention would be inevitable.