Help for Kids with Cerebral Palsy
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Restraining the less-affected arm of kids with cerebral palsy leads to better use of the more-affected arm, report researchers publishing in this month's Pediatrics.
Cerebral palsy is a non-progressive motor impairment syndrome affecting about two in 1,000 children in the United States and more than 1 million kids in the industrialized world. A significant number of children with the condition have greater deficits in one upper extremity than in the other, leading most to favor the less affected arm over the more affected arm. Studies have shown adults with loss of functioning on one side of the body due to stroke often respond to a treatment called constraint-induced movement, or CI. The therapy basically involves restraining the better functioning side to force people to develop skills using the impaired side.
Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and elsewhere tested the treatment in a group of 18 children ages 7 months to 8 years who had cerebral palsy that was worse in one upper extremity than the other. About half the group received conventional treatment for the condition while the other half received CI. Children in the CI group had their less-affected arm restrained by casting six hours a day for 21 days.
Compared to the control group, children in the CI group demonstrated significant improvements. Not only did they gain more new motor skills over the course of the study, they also used their more affected arm more at home and displayed substantial improvements during laboratory testing, including unprompted use of the more affected arm.
Most importantly, the therapy appeared to be long lasting. At a six-month follow up, children treated with CI still showed greater use of their more affected arm.
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SOURCE: Pediatrics, 2004;113:305-311
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