Evaluation of motoric deficit in children after posterior fossa brain tumor surgery

Objective: The main goal of this study was to collect and summarize all available data on both short term effects and late effects of posterior cranial fossa tumor treatment on children patients' motoric abilities and to find out any possible correlation between a decline in motoric abilities and the type of treatment they received. Following previous studies on the topic, this study set a goal to design a testing procedure for areas in which decline of motoric abilities manifests the strongest and to put this procedure to test in the practical part of the study. Methods: Based on a research into specialized literature, four main areas in which a decline of motoric abilities occurs in posterior cranial fossa tumor patients have been identified. Those are ataxia, balance, physical condition and functional activities. For Ataxia the SARA test was used, for physical condition the 6MWT test, for balance the PCTSIB test and for functional activities the BOT-2 test, respectively. Furthermore we observed the overall quality of life of selected patients through a PedsQL questionnaire. The group of patients selected for this experiment consisted of nine individuals who underwent posterior cranial fossa tumor treatment more than two years before. Results: The SARA (p=0,020) a 6MWT (p