title: [Hypotonic syndrome in the newborn infant].
abstract: Hypotonia is understood to refer to a pronounced decrease in muscle tone that affects normal motor development and that may affect the axial muscles as well as those of the limbs and, sometimes, the face. It is a very challenging clinical picture because it consists in a fairly wide range of conditions that affect different areas of the central and peripheral nervous system and may be the expression of pathologies that can be either benign or of an uncertain prognosis. These cover myopathies, metabolic disorders, diseases based on genetic causes, pathologies affecting the endocrine glands and progressive or chronic diseases, among other aetiologies. The important development of medicine today has made a number of tools available to the examiner with which to refine or pronounce a diagnosis. Such instruments include the developments achieved in genetic research, together with studies conducted in imaging and optical and electronic microscopy. However, in spite of having all this material available for use, it is still the clinical features that allow a rational use to be made of these advances to be able to point towards the possible causation, topographic location and developmental control. It is useful, for the diagnostic approach and the use of auxiliary methods, to know the topographic location of the disorder, whether it is situated in the brain, the cerebellum, the stem, the spinal cord, the peripheral nerves, the myoneural junction or the muscle.
authors.affiliation: Centro Medico La Costa, Asuncion, Paraguay.
authors.forename: Víctor Alejandro
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Gaona
mesh_terms: D002526:Cerebellar Diseases / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D030342:Genetic Diseases, Inborn / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology; D020271:Heredodegenerative Disorders, Nervous System / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D009123:Muscle Hypotonia / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000628:therapy; D009468:Neuromuscular Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology; D011051:Poliomyelitis / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology