Abstract
Background: There is an urgent need to systematically analyze the growing body of literature on the effect of motor imagery (MI) training in children and adolescents. Methods: Seven databases and clinicaltrials.gov were searched. Two reviewers independently screened references and full texts, and extracted data (studies’ methodology, MI elements, temporal parameters). Two studies were meta-analyzed providing the standard mean difference (SDM). Selected studies were evaluated with the risk of bias (RoB) and GRADE tools. Results: A total of 7238 references were retrieved. The sample size of the 22 included studies, published between 1995 and 2021, ranged from 18 to 136 participants, totaling 934 (nine to 18 years). Studies included healthy pupils, mentally retarded adolescents, children with motor coordination difficulties or with mild mental disabilities. The motor learning tasks focused on upper, lower and whole body movements. SMDs for the primary outcome of pooled studies varied between 0.83 to 1.87 (95% CI, I2, T2 varied 0.33–3.10; p = 0.001; 0–74%; 0–0.59). RoB varied between some concerns and high risk. GRADE rating was low. Conclusions: MI combined with physical practice (PP) might have a high potential for healthy and impaired children and adolescents. However, important reporting recommendations (PETTLEP, TIDieR, CONSORT) should be followed. The systematic review was registered with PROSPERO: CRD42021237361.
Highlights
Motor imagery (MI) is essential in everyday life for numerous human motor activities [1]
Data were analyzed using the Review Manager 5 software [95] and were pooled for meta-analysis when we considered studies to be sufficiently similar in terms of participants, interventions, comparisons, and outcomes
This systematic review aimed to assess the effects of a MI training (MIT) with or without physical practice (PP) on motor learning of various motor tasks to be trained, compared with different measures in the control condition
Summary
Motor imagery (MI) is essential in everyday life for numerous human motor activities [1] It refers to the mental simulation of action in the absence of any evident motor output [2,3] and can be defined as a dynamic cognitive process in which an individual mentally simulates an action without the external manifestation of the motor act [4,5]. According to Jeannerod [6], MI is the representation of the action involved in the planning, execution and modulation of the movements It does not depend on residual motor function but on an internal representation of the motor act to imagine, and can provide a substitute for executed movement by activating the motor network [7].
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