Developmental screening in family practice

Abstract

Paediatric screening is an important area of medical practice because, in the words of Dr Mary Sheridan, ''There is general agreement that the younger the age at which children with physical, mental, emotional or social disabilities are discovered and fully assessed, the more hopeful is the prognosis for amelioration or complete rehabilitation. " Family Doctors have many paediatric consultations, and they know the parents and therefore the family and social background, so they are in a good position to integrate personal preventive medicine with curative medicine. In the past the emphasis was on dealing with individual paediatric problems as and when they presented themselves to the medical profession, but nowadays the trend is to try and look at the whole child.