Introduction: There is shortage of specialists for the diagnosis of children with neuromotor impairments (NMIs), especially in resource limited settings. Existing International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN) instrument for diagnosing NMI have been validated for children aged 2-9 years. The current study modified the same including wider symptomatology and age group (1 month to 18 years).
Methods: The Modified INCLEN diagnostic tool (INDT) was developed by a team of experts by modifying the existing tool to widen the age range (1 month to 18 years) and include broader symptomatology (inclusion of milestones from the first 2 years of life and better elucidation of cerebellar and extrapyramidal features) in a tertiary care teaching hospital of North India between January and April 2015. A trained medical graduate applied the candidate tool, which was followed by gold standard evaluation by a Pediatric Neurologist (both blinded to each other).
Results: A total of 197 children (102 with NMI and 95 without NMI) were enrolled for the study. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, positive and negative likelihood ratio of the modified NMI tool were 90.4% (82.6-95.5), 95.5% (88.7-98.7), 95.5% (88.9-98.7), 90.3% (82.4-95.5), 19.9 (12.1-32.6), and 0.13 (0.08-0.12), respectively.
Conclusion: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences modified INDT NMI tool is a simple and structured instrument covering a wider symptomatology in the 1 month to 18 years age group with acceptable diagnostic accuracy.
Keywords: All India Institute of Medical Sciences; INCLEN diagnostic tool; International Clinical Epidemiology Network; neuromotor impairment; tool.