Psychomotor development during treatment of severely marasmic infants.

Previous studies of amlnourished infants have shown that their psychomotor development improves parallel to their nutritional rehabilitation. The present study showed that our patients recovered weight-for-age faster than height-for-age, becoming 42% obese at the end of the treatment. The psychomotor development was also significantly improved, but mainly in social, language and fine coordination areas. The gross motor behaviour did not show any improvement during 5 months of treatment. These results are interpreted in terms of the syndrome of dissociation of maturation.