The influence of fat mass percentage, EK functional motor scale and age in children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of the fat mass percentage and age on the mobility of these children. It was used the EK functional motor scale to determine their movement capacity. It was also used skinfolds measures and anthropometric formulas to calculate fat mass percentage, as well as calculated age means. The EK scale was also applied, by a total of five evaluations in six boys with ages from seven to eleven years. All values demonstrated that, as the age value gets higher, the fat mass and EK scale points were higher either, meaning that these individuals have bigger motor limitations. After the application of the Rho Spearman test the correlations values between the variables of fat mass and EK scale, the correlations results showed “Very Good” values, meaning that one gets higher as the other one gets higher too, with a 0.006 significant statistical value, and was also obtained “Very Good” correlation results between age and EK scale (0.000). We didn’t found any significant statistical values, and all variables increase from the first to the fifth evaluation. This study has reveal that fat mass percentage and age affect EK scale, which leads to higher motor limitations.