Effect of cardiac 'nondisease' on intellectual and perceptual motor development.

The relation between the misdiagnosis of heart disease (cardiac 'nondisease') and intellectual and perceptual motor development was investigated by comparing the performance on the WISC and the Bender-Gestalt tests of 9 restricted and 25 nonrestricted children with cardiac 'nondisease' with 3I children of comparable age and racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. On the WISC, the restricted children had the lowest full-scale verbal and performance scores and showed the most variability between their verbal subtest scores. The non- restricted children had lower full scale and verbal scores and showed more variability in their verbal subtest scores than did the control children. The functioning of all three groups on the Bender-Gestalt test did not differ significantly; and it is, therefore, unlikely that the impaired performance on the WISC of the children with cardiac 'nondisease' was due to organic brain disease. It is concluded that the accumulative emotional factors of the diagnosis of heart disease, especially if accompanied by physical restrictions, are detrimental to intellectual development. Family physicians, paediatricians, and paediatric cardiologists are consequently urged to do more complete and earlier evaluations of the cardiac status of infants and small children who are suspected to have heart disease in order to minimize the number who are falsely diagnosed. Additionally, exercise restrictions should be advised only for children with proved cardiac lesions which were moderate to severe.