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Event-related Potentials During Target-response Tasks to Study Cognitive Processes of Upper Limb Use in Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy
Published on: January 11, 2016
Uptime in children with cerebral palsy
Marinis Pirpiris1, H Kerr Graham
1Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. kerr.graham@rch.org.au
Insights
A remote activity monitor, the Uptimer, reliably measures upright time in children with cerebral palsy. This measure correlates with disease severity and functional assessments, offering valuable insights into physical function outside the lab.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Rehabilitation Medicine
- Biomedical Engineering
Background:
- Traditional functional assessments for children with physical disabilities often rely on lab-based measures.
- Community-based activity monitoring may offer a more direct reflection of physical function, health, and well-being.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the Uptimer, a remote activity monitor, for measuring upright time in children with cerebral palsy.
- To assess the validity and reliability of the Uptimer in a clinical pediatric population.
Main Methods:
- A cohort of 300 children with cerebral palsy was recruited from an orthopedic outpatient department.
- The Uptimer device was used to remotely measure time spent in the upright position.
- Correlations were examined with established instruments like the Pediatric Orthopaedic Data Collection Instrument (PODCI), Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ), and Functional Mobility Scale (FMS).
Main Results:
- The Uptimer demonstrated validity and reliability in quantifying daily upright time for children with cerebral palsy.
- Measured upright time (Uptime) showed a strong relationship with cerebral palsy severity.
- Uptime exhibited excellent correlations with PODCI, CHQ, and FMS, indicating its clinical relevance.
Conclusions:
- The Uptimer is a valid and reliable tool for assessing upright activity in children with cerebral palsy.
- Community-based activity monitoring using the Uptimer complements traditional quantitative functional assessments.
- This technology provides valuable data on physical function and well-being in pediatric populations with physical disabilities.
Abstract:
Quantitative evaluation of function, in children with physical disabilities, has to date been mainly focused on laboratory-based measures. However, the measurement of activity in the community may have a more direct relationship with physical function, health, and well-being. We assessed the utility of a remote activity monitor, the Uptimer (National Aging Research Institute of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia), to measure one aspect of physical function, time spent in the upright position, in a consecutive cohort of 300 children with cerebral palsy who attended an orthopedic outpatient department. The Uptimer was found to be a valid and reliable tool to measure the amount of time children spent on their feet each day. Uptime was closely related to the severity of cerebral palsy and had excellent correlations with validated instruments including the Pediatric Orthopaedic Data Collection Instrument (PODCI), the Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ), and the Functional Mobility Scale (FMS). Uptime complements any quantitative functional assessment of impairments in children with cerebral palsy.
