ABSTRACT
Background: Motor Imagery (MI) is a cognitive process consisting in mental simulation of body movements without executing physical actions: its clinical use has been investigated prevalently in adults with neurological disorders. Objectives: Review of the best-available evidence on the use and efficacy of MI interventions for neurorehabilitation purposes in common and rare childhood neurological disorders. Methods: systematic literature search conducted according to PRISMA by using the Scopus, PsycArticles, Cinahl, PUBMED, Web of Science (Clarivate), EMBASE, PsychINFO, and COCHRANE databases, with levels of evidence scored by OCEBM and PEDro Scales. Results: Twenty-two original studies were retrieved and included for the analysis; MI was the unique or complementary rehabilitative treatment in 476 individuals (aged 5 to 18 years) with 10 different neurological conditions including, cerebral palsies, stroke, coordination disorders, intellectual disabilities, brain and/or spinal cord injuries, autism, pain syndromes, and hyperactivity. The sample size ranged from single case reports to cohorts and control groups. Treatment lasted 2 days to 6 months with 1 to 24 sessions. MI tasks were conventional, graded or ad-hoc. MI measurement tools included movement assessment batteries, mental chronometry tests, scales, and questionnaires, EEG, and EMG. Overall, the use of MI was stated as effective in 19/22, and uncertain in the remnant studies. Conclusion: MI could be a reliable supportive/add-on (home-based) rehabilitative tool for pediatric neurorehabilitation; its clinical use, in children, is highly dependent on the complexity of MI mechanisms, which are related to the underlying neurodevelopmental disorder.
ABSTRACT
The earliest examples of neurofibromatosis (in this case type 1, NF1) can be traced in the Ebers Papyrus (Ancient Egypt, 1.500 B.C.), in a Hellenistic statuette (Smyrna, 323 B.C.), in the coinage of the Parthians kings (247 B.C.) and in some 13th century monks' drawings. These earlier examples are somewhat less well defined as compared to the most recent better defined reports credited as having NF1 including an Inca child mummy (1480-1650 AD), Ulisse Aldrovandi's homuncio ("Monstrorum Historia", 1592 A.D.) with mosaic NF1 or the illustrations seen in the 18th century "Buffon's Histoire Naturelle" and "Cruveilhier's Anatomie Pathologique du Corps Human". The first English language report on NF1 was made by Akenside in 1768 and the first systematic review by Robert William Smith in 1849, while Virchow's pupil, Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen, in 1882, was the first to understand the origin of skin tumors and to name them neurofibromas. The touching story of Joseph C. Merrick (the "Elephant man," (who had Proteus syndrome and not NF1), in 1884, played an important role in the later misconception of NF1, as did the novel by Vicotr Hugo on the hunchback Quasimodo. The studies by van der Hoeve (1921), Yakovlev and Guthrie (1931), and Van Bogaert (1935), categorized "von Recklinghausen's" neurofibromatosis among the phakomatoses and the neurocutaneous syndromes. The first known mention of an acoustic neuroma (at autopsy) is attributed to Eduard Sandifort (1777 AD) while John H. Wishart made the earliest autoptic description of neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2), in 1822, in a 21-year-old man with bilateral acoustic neuromas, who manifested signs since his infancy (Wishart subtype NF2). Smith likely described the first case of schwannomatosis in 1849. Older, Virchow, von Recklinghausen, and Verocay first classified "neuromas" and Masson and Penfield first used the word "schwannoma" taking it from Theodore Schwann's works. In 1903 Henneberg and Koch described NF2 in detail. Young, Eldridge, and Gardner, in the late '70, established NF2 as a distinct familial entity (Gardner subtype NF2). Schwannomatosis, the late entry of the different forms of neurofibromatosis, was credited in the middle '90.