Cargando…

Development of an Evidence-Based Clinical Algorithm for Practice in Hypotonia Assessment: A Proposal

BACKGROUND: Assessing muscle tone in children is essential during the neurological assessment and is often essential in ensuring a more accurate diagnosis for appropriate management. While there have been advances in child neurology, there remains much contention around the subjectivity of the clini...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Naidoo, Pragashnie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications Inc. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4275483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25485571
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/resprot.3581
_version_ 1782350132443873280
author Naidoo, Pragashnie
author_facet Naidoo, Pragashnie
author_sort Naidoo, Pragashnie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Assessing muscle tone in children is essential during the neurological assessment and is often essential in ensuring a more accurate diagnosis for appropriate management. While there have been advances in child neurology, there remains much contention around the subjectivity of the clinical assessment of hypotonia, which is often the first step in the diagnostic process. OBJECTIVE: In response to this challenge, the objective of the study is to develop and validate a prototype of a decision making process in the form of a clinical algorithm that will guide clinicians during this assessment process. METHODS: Design research within a pragmatic stance will be employed in this study. Multi-phase stages of assessment, prototyping and evaluation will occur. These will include processes that include a systematic review, processes of reflection and action as well as validation methods. Given the mixed methods nature of this study, use of NVIVO or ATLAS-ti will be used in the analysis of qualitative data and SPSS for quantitative data. RESULTS: Initial results from the systematic review revealed a paucity of scientific literature that documented the objective assessment of hypotonia in children. The review identified the need for more studies with greater methodological rigor in order to determine best practice with respect to the methods used in the assessment of low muscle tone in the paediatric population. CONCLUSIONS: It is envisaged that this proposal will contribute to a more accurate clinical diagnosis of children with low muscle tone in the absence of a gold standard. We anticipate that the use of this tool will ultimately assist clinicians towards moving to evidenced based practice whilst upholding best practice in the care of children with hypotonia.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4275483
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2014
publisher JMIR Publications Inc.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-42754832014-12-26 Development of an Evidence-Based Clinical Algorithm for Practice in Hypotonia Assessment: A Proposal Naidoo, Pragashnie JMIR Res Protoc Proposal BACKGROUND: Assessing muscle tone in children is essential during the neurological assessment and is often essential in ensuring a more accurate diagnosis for appropriate management. While there have been advances in child neurology, there remains much contention around the subjectivity of the clinical assessment of hypotonia, which is often the first step in the diagnostic process. OBJECTIVE: In response to this challenge, the objective of the study is to develop and validate a prototype of a decision making process in the form of a clinical algorithm that will guide clinicians during this assessment process. METHODS: Design research within a pragmatic stance will be employed in this study. Multi-phase stages of assessment, prototyping and evaluation will occur. These will include processes that include a systematic review, processes of reflection and action as well as validation methods. Given the mixed methods nature of this study, use of NVIVO or ATLAS-ti will be used in the analysis of qualitative data and SPSS for quantitative data. RESULTS: Initial results from the systematic review revealed a paucity of scientific literature that documented the objective assessment of hypotonia in children. The review identified the need for more studies with greater methodological rigor in order to determine best practice with respect to the methods used in the assessment of low muscle tone in the paediatric population. CONCLUSIONS: It is envisaged that this proposal will contribute to a more accurate clinical diagnosis of children with low muscle tone in the absence of a gold standard. We anticipate that the use of this tool will ultimately assist clinicians towards moving to evidenced based practice whilst upholding best practice in the care of children with hypotonia. JMIR Publications Inc. 2014-12-05 /pmc/articles/PMC4275483/ /pubmed/25485571 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/resprot.3581 Text en ©Pragashnie Naidoo. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 05.12.2014. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Proposal
Naidoo, Pragashnie
Development of an Evidence-Based Clinical Algorithm for Practice in Hypotonia Assessment: A Proposal
title Development of an Evidence-Based Clinical Algorithm for Practice in Hypotonia Assessment: A Proposal
title_full Development of an Evidence-Based Clinical Algorithm for Practice in Hypotonia Assessment: A Proposal
title_fullStr Development of an Evidence-Based Clinical Algorithm for Practice in Hypotonia Assessment: A Proposal
title_full_unstemmed Development of an Evidence-Based Clinical Algorithm for Practice in Hypotonia Assessment: A Proposal
title_short Development of an Evidence-Based Clinical Algorithm for Practice in Hypotonia Assessment: A Proposal
title_sort development of an evidence-based clinical algorithm for practice in hypotonia assessment: a proposal
topic Proposal
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4275483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25485571
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/resprot.3581
work_keys_str_mv AT naidoopragashnie developmentofanevidencebasedclinicalalgorithmforpracticeinhypotoniaassessmentaproposal