METHODS
This retrospective chart review included children born in Uppsala County
from 2010 to 2016 who had received a CP diagnosis by December 2018. The
children were identified through the local CP register (n=38), which is
part of the Swedish National Cerebral Palsy Surveillance Program and
Registry (CPUP),16 and through the electronic medical
chart system (n=19). Children who were born outside Uppsala County or
had moved into the county after 1 year of age were excluded from the
study (n=18), leaving 39 eligible children.
Uppsala County have approximately 295,000 inhabitants living in either
urban Uppsala or its surrounding rural areas. During the study period,
28,665 children were born in the county (Statistics Sweden), distributed
as following: 668 born before gestational week 31 (2.3%), 1447 between
gestational weeks 32-36 (5.1%) and 26,550 born at term (92.6%). These
children attended well-child visits at any of the 44 child health
centers in the county. Children enrolled in the neonatal follow-up
program (gestational age <32 weeks) attended visits at Uppsala
University Children’s Hospital, where the physiotherapist routinely
assessed the infants’ motor performance using Structured Observation of
Motor Performance in Infants (SOMP-I) at 2, 4 and 10 months corrected
age.17 When a diagnosis of CP was made by the
neuropediatrician, the child was referred to habilitation services. The
final diagnosis of CP is routinely made around four years of
age.16