What is the General Movements Assessment?

Children with cerebral palsy experience brain damage around birth or before birth. So the language of the brain in other words, the way they will move, will be different from typical movements. So by looking at their movements, we will understand that there is something that is wrong in the brain.

The general movements are movements we all do when we are infants spontaneously, and all babies do that. They are the result of the brain that is functioning. So when the brain works and we are just born or even in the uterus, we move. So if we learn how to read this movement, to understand and to interpret, we are putting a little bit of a window inside the brain of these babies. So if we understand how normal movements occur, we can understand that in these babies the movements are less rich and less valuable, less complex. So overall, it's a technique that is very straightforward. So it is very important to detect cerebral palsy early for several reasons, but the main one is that we want to intervene as soon as possible.

The General Movements is a very reliable technique, and there are now many studies that have shown that it's one of the most powerful methods to predict cerebral palsy. It's probably the most powerful among the clinical methods. The General Movements technique is easy to be learned. It's straightforward, can be shared by experts, of course needs some training, but it can be easily implemented.