title: General Movements Assessment of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit following surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  There is an identified gap in the literature regarding the use of the General Movements (GMs) Assessment to identify risk in infants post-surgery. This paper aims to examine the GMs for infants who have undergone surgery to identify common risk profiles in the writhing age.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a prospective cohort study of 170 infants (99 male, 58%) admitted to a neonatal surgical unit from 2012 until June 2014. Infants were born at a mean age of 38 weeks (standard deviation (SD) 2.3), and writhing GMs were conducted at term (40 weeks, SD 2.6) following either cardiac (n = 84, 49%) or non-cardiac surgery (n = 86, 51%). GMs were categorised by three trained assessors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Normal writhing was recorded in 64 infants (38%). The most common profile was poor repertoire (n = 80, 47%), with 14 (8%) cramped synchronised. There was no difference in scores between infants who had undergone cardiac versus non-cardiac surgery (P = 0.45).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first report on the GMs assessment in an infant surgical population. Infants who have undergone surgery most commonly display poor repertoire writhing movements. Research is needed to determine the ability of the GMs to predict neurodevelopmental outcomes in this population.
authors.affiliation: Grace Centre for Newborn Care, The Children's Hospital Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.|University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Cathryn
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Crowle
authors.affiliation: Grace Centre for Newborn Care, The Children's Hospital Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.|University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.|Cerebral Palsy Alliance, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Nadia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Badawi
authors.affiliation: Grace Centre for Newborn Care, The Children's Hospital Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.|University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.|Cerebral Palsy Alliance, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.affiliation: Cerebral Palsy Alliance, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Iona
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Novak
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007363:Intensive Care Units, Neonatal; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement; D009460:Neurologic Examination / Q000379:methods*; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods
keywords: infant; intensive care unit; neonatal; neurologic examination; thoracic surgery