Importance of Early Habilitation of Children with Down Syndrome in Achieving Motor patterns

Children with Down syndrome have delayed motor development because of decreased muscle tone (hypotonia). In some is less and some more pronounced hypotonia so the period varies of achieving some motor postures and starting to walk. Goal is to show the importance of early habilitation of children with Down syndrome and its impact in relation to the childʹs age when it started, and the type of habilitation treatments that were used. Material and Methods: Retrospective analysis included thirty seven children with Down syndrome in the period from 2003 until 2009 that were in the habilitation program at the Pediatric Clinic of the Clinical Center of Sarajevo University at the Department of developmental diagnosis habilitation and rehabilitation of children. Children were included in the habilitation program by Vojta method and Bobath concept. Results: After statistical evaluation we have reached the following results: from 37 children with Down syndrome, 20 were male and 17 female. It is evident that the majority of children with Down syndrome, 59.46%, began physical therapy up to 5 months after birth. The largest number of children up to 13 months was able to achieve sitting alone-21 or 56.76%. The results tell us that 20 patients started to walk at the 20 habilitation months after starting treatment. 78.38% of the respondents, or 29 of them managed to walk until 25 months from the commencement of habilitation treatment. Conclusion: Based on the above we can conclude that children with Down syndrome much earlier achieved specific motor activities as they were earlier included in the rehabilitation treatment.