Mining Association Rules for Neurobehavioral and Motor Disorders in Children Diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Children diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP) appear to be at high risk for developing neurobehavioral and motor disorders. The most common disorders for these children are impaired visual-perception skills and motor planning. Besides, they often have impaired executive functions, which can contribute to problematic emotional adjustment such as depression. Additionally, literature suggests that the tendency to develop these cognitive impairments and emotional abnormalities in pediatric CP is influenced by age and IQ. Because there are many other medical co-morbidities that can occur with CP (e.g., seizures and shunt placement), prediction of what percentages of patients will incur cognitive impairment and emotional abnormality is a difficult task. The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations between possible factors mentioned above, and neurobehavioral and motor disorders from a clinical database of pediatric subjects diagnosed with CP. The study resulted in 22 rules that can predict negative outcomes. These rules reinforced the growing body of literature supporting a link between CP, executive dysfunction, and subsequent neurobehavioral problems. The antecedents and consequents of some association rules were single factors, while other statistical associations were interactions of factor combinations. Further research is needed to include children’s comprehensive treatment and medication history in order to determine additional impacts on their neurobehavioral and motor disorders.

Ten‐year follow‐up study found that motor‐free intelligence quotient declined in children with mild‐to‐moderate cerebral palsy

“…Similarly, our findings indicated children with cerebral palsy and a history of seizures showed slower‐than‐expected development of FSIQ over time. This is consistent with previous studies that suggest seizures have a deleterious effect on cognition 26,27 . Indeed, there is an interplay between age, seizures and cognitive abilities—that is, an adolescent with cerebral palsy and seizures is more likely to have lower IQ than a younger child with cerebral palsy and seizures 26 .…”

“…This is consistent with previous studies that suggest seizures have a deleterious effect on cognition. 26,27 Indeed, there is an interplay between age, seizures and cognitive abilities-that is, an adolescent with cerebral palsy and seizures is more likely to have lower IQ than a younger child with cerebral palsy and seizures. 26 This contention is supported by MRI studies, which have shown that increasing epilepsy duration is associated with reduced efficiency of brain networks that support higher order cognitive functions 28,29 and in turn, is associated with IQ decline.…”

“…26,27 Indeed, there is an interplay between age, seizures and cognitive abilities-that is, an adolescent with cerebral palsy and seizures is more likely to have lower IQ than a younger child with cerebral palsy and seizures. 26 This contention is supported by MRI studies, which have shown that increasing epilepsy duration is associated with reduced efficiency of brain networks that support higher order cognitive functions 28,29 and in turn, is associated with IQ decline. 28 Therefore, seizures appear to contribute to a reduced rate of cognitive skill acquisition in children with cerebral palsy, which manifests as a decline in FSIQ scores when the child is expected to respond to increasingly complex demands.…”

icuARM-II

“…ARM has been widely used in data mining for the discovery of new and potentially important relationships among variables in biomedical and healthcare domains such as gene expression profiling [20, 21], cardiovascular disease prediction [22, 23], healthcare auditing [24, 25], neurological diagnosis [26, 27], and predictive health [28]. In our previous study, we developed an ICU clinical decision support system (named icuARM ) using ARM and MIMIC-II, which is a well-known ICU research database [29].…”