[The use of the visuo-motor reaction training device for the improvement of the coordination in the eye-hand system of the children and adolescents following the completion of the antineoplastic treatment of brain tumours].

UNLABELLED

The survivors among the children and adolescents with a brain tumour are likely to show evidence of the impairment of the most important cognitive functions, such as attention, visual-motor integration, and working memory, following the completion of the antineoplastic treatment. The basic characteristics of these functions compromised in the patients presenting with the most serious cognitive deficiency are the information processing rate and the time needed for carrying out any cognitive activity in the patients experiencing deficit of white matter in the brain.

AIM

The objective of the present study was to demonstrate the possibility and the effectiveness of the application of the new method for the stimulation of the information processing activity of the brain, the enhancement of its effectiveness, and the improvement of the quality of the visual-motor coordination in the children and adolescents following the completion of the antineoplastic treatment of brain tumours. This paper reports the first experience of the application of the Dynavision d2 visuo-motor reaction training device which has been used for the visual-motor integration and the increase of the information processing speed.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The sample included in the study was comprised of a total of 46 children at the mean age of 10.6±3.34 years that had undergone the treatment of the brain neoplasm. Each patient participated in 5 to 8 sessions of exercises with the use of the the Dynavision d2 visuo-motor reaction training device during 21 days.

RESULTS

All the treated patients exhibited the stable reduction of the mean time of the reaction from the first session to the last one. The comparison of the outcomes of the treatment between the children of different sexes has demonstrated better results (in absolute terms and in dynamics) in the girls in comparison with the boys. The exercises with the use of the Dynavision d2 visuo-motor reaction training device were not accompanied by any negative subjective sensations in the treated patients, nor did they induce the adverse somatic side effects.

CONCLUSION

The results of the present study give evidence of both the applicability and the effectiveness of the application of the Dynavision d2 visuo-motor reaction training device for the diagnostics of the disturbances in the motor and visual coordination and the associated cognitive functions and for their correction in the children following the treatment of the neoplasm of the posterior cranial fossa.