[A clinical study of severely mental and motor retarded children].

From 1986 to 1992, we examined 73 patients with severely mental and motor retardation. The onset age of 82% of the patients was less than one year. The number of patients was 29 and 54, in 1986 and 1992, respectively. The etiology for 48 patients was congenital or neonatal diseases. All patients were unable to eat by themselves. Tracheotomy was made on ten cases. Eight patients were on home oxygen therapy. Twenty-one patients had the history of mechanical ventilation. Sixty-three patients had the history of hospitalization and their total number of hospitalization was 343. About a half of hospitalizations was for respiratory disturbance. The number of cases with long term hospitalization recently increased. Ten patients died, only one patient died of pneumonia. Unexpected sudden death occurred in three patients.