ARTICOLI ORIGINALI   

Gazzetta Medica Italiana Archivio per le Scienze Mediche 2014 July-August;173(7-8):393-9

Copyright © 2014 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Assessment of the motor development of children poisoned with mercury

Sousa J. M. ^{1, 2}, Novaes J. S. ³, Rodrigues Neto G. ³, Sousa M. S. ^{1, 2}, Reis I. G. ¹, Carvalhal M. I. ¹

¹ University of Trás‑os‑Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), Doctoral Program in Sport Science, Portugal; ² State University of Pará (UEPA), Belém, Pará, Brazil; ³ Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Physical Education, Graduate Program, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

AIM: The aim of the present study was to compare the anthropometric measurements and motor performance of children from the state of Pará, Brazil who had been contaminated with methylmercury to those of children who were free of methylmercury contamination.
METHODS: This report is a cross-sectional study conducted with 183 children from Pará aged seven to 11 years who were divided into two groups: one comprised 115 children who had been contaminated with methylmercury according to hair analysis, and the other comprised 68 noncontaminated children who lived far from mining areas. The revised Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2) was used. The test comprises 12 areas, six of which measure locomotor skills and six of which measure object control skills. Intergroup analysis was performed with the Mann-Whitney test using BioEstat Version 5.3 software (p<0.01).
RESULTS: The anthropometric parameters (body mass, height, and body mass index [BMI]) did not exhibit significant differences between the groups (p=0.844; p=0.498; and p=0.814, respectively). However, the motor development skills (locomotion, object control, and gross motor quotient) values were significantly greater in the contaminated compared with the noncontaminated group (p=0.0001 for all three variables).
CONCLUSION: Mercury poisoning did not affect the anthropometric characteristics (growth) of the studied children but did impair their motor performance.