19/10/2011

Dr. Manuel Roig, responsible of pediatric neurology at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital and member of the pediatric neurology group at Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), has published the book "Oral-Motor Disorders in Childhood' (Editors: Manuel Roig-Quilis & Lindsay Pennington), a pioneering monograph text about this disease of childhood with contributions of prestige international clinicians and basic researchers.The oro-motor system is one of the most complex physiologic systems in humans. Coordination for sequencing sucking, swallowing, and breathing during oral feeding requires integrated brainstem function, along with sensory inputs and motor actions mediated through sensory and motor nuclei groups that are located along the brainstem axis. Cortical and sub-cortical structures control these nuclei. Disruptions in this system can occur at different levels and in multiple ways for infants with a variety of underlying medical diagnoses. All professionals involved in clinical care and research with infants and children demonstrating feeding and swallowing problems must have extensive knowledge regarding normal development of oro-motor functions.The term oro-motor disorders (OMD) refers to a group of chronic diseases that predominantly affect sensory inputs, motor systems and movement organisation involved in sucking, chewing, swallowing, speech articulation and facial non-verbal communication. Feeding problems, abnormal swallowing, gastro-esophageal reflux, and food pulmonary aspiration, which may lead to poor nutritional state, are common initial clinical findings in this group of patients. Drooling, dysarthria, learning disability and poor social integration are their main late clinical problems, and all of them result in poor social integration and significant quality of life reduction. The approach and classification proposed in this book provides an structural frame work which helps to identify the underlying cause, anatomical location as well as the natural history of each group of diseases leading to an OMD. Children with OMD are not numerous. However, as a group, they merit special consideration since their management is complex due to the diverse disciplines of health care involved, the protracted and varying course, and the significant amount of resources their treatment requires.