Ntrainer Case Study Summary

Using the NTrainer, the treatment group was given three minute periods of patterned orocutaneous stimulation during daily feeding times. The infants were directly fed through their stomachs. The infants were given a Soothie silicone pacifier that provided non-nutritive sucking through patterned orocutaneous stimulation. The therapy stimulated the temporal patterns of the non-nutritive sucking motion to help the infants develop non-nutritive sucking. To create an artificial non-nutritive suck, a 16-bit digital-to-analog converter was used. It consisted of a sequence of six cycle bursts and two second pause times. During a three minute NTrainer session, in total, 34 artificial non-nutritive suck burst-pauses were administered to the infants.
The results suggested that NTrainer therapy is inconsistently successful in helping with developing non-nutritive sucking and with oral feeding success in preterm infants. There was an increase in the infants receiving the therapy, but the increase was disproportionate. There were only 31 individuals participating in this study and only 21 received the therapy. This study does not provide a good representation of the whole population. Having more studies conducted on this therapy approach would provide for more valid
This study does provide potential success for preterm infants with oromotor dysfunction in helping with non-nutritive sucking and oral feeding. NTrainer patterned orocutaneous therapy can be useful to help accelerate the development of non-nutritive sucking and ability to oral feed. Even though NTrainer therapy showed increases in non-nutritive suck and oral feeding in preterm infants with oromotor dysfunction, further research will be useful in providing more valid and conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of using NTrainer therapy in a clinical