Impaired fine motor skills in children following extraction of a dense congenital or infantile unilateral cataract

Abstract

To evaluate fine motor ability in children treated for unilateral congenital or infantile cataract. Twenty-three children 3-13years of age who were treated for unilateral congenital or infantile cataract and 38 age-similar control children were enrolled. Children completed five fine motor skills tasks (unimanual dexterity, bimanual dexterity, drawing trail, aiming, catching) from the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2. Raw scores were converted into standardized scores, with higher scores indicating better performance. Compared with controls, children treated for unilateral cataract scored lower on drawing trail (P=0.009), aiming (P=0.009), and catching (P<0.001) but not on unimanual (P=0.77) or bimanual dexterity (P=0.31). Poorer affected eye visual acuity was moderately related to poorer performance for unimanual dexterity (r=-0.47; P=0.025), bimanual dexterity (r=-0.50; P=0.014), and catching (r=-0.41; P=0.051). Those with a poor visual outcome (>0.6 logMAR) had worse performance than those with a good visual outcome (≤0.6 logMAR) for all tasks (all P values, 0.008-0.09) except aiming. Cataract type (congenital, 9; infantile, 14) and sensory fusion by Worth 4-Dot testing at 33cm (pass, 10; fail, 13) had no effect on fine motor performance (all P values, 0.12-0.98). In our study cohort, fine motor deficits were found in children treated for congenital or infantile unilateral cataract.