Using the Alberta Infant Motor Scale to early identify very low-birth-weight infants with cystic periventricular leukomalacia

We examined whether the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) is able to identify very low-birth-weight (VLBW) preterm infants with cystic periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) as early as 6 months of corrected age. Longitudinal follow-up AIMS assessments were done at 6, 12, and 18 months old for 35 VLBW infants with cystic PVL (cPVL⁺), 70 VLBW infants without cystic PVL (cPVL⁻), and 76 term infants (healthy controls: HC). Corrected age was used for the preterm infants. The cPVL⁺ group had significantly lower prone, supine and sitting subscales at age 6, 12, and 18 months than the cPVL⁻ group (all p < 0.05). The cPVL⁻ group showed significantly lower supine, prone, sitting, and standing subscales than the HC group only at age 6 months. At age 6 months, the areas under the receiver operator curve used to discriminate the cPVL⁺ infants from cPVL⁻ infants were 0.82 ± 0.04 for prone, 0.93 ± 0.02 for supine, 0.83 ± 0.05 for sitting, and 0.62 ± 0.07 for standing. The AIMS may help early identify VLBW infants with cystic PVL at age 6 months old.