The assessment of functional status in Turkish children with cerebral palsy (a preliminary study)

Cerebral palsy (CP) is one of the most common causes of disability in childhood leading to functional limitations. Assessment of the functional limitations is important to determine the severity of the disability in CP and to evaluate the benefit of the rehabilitation programme. However, the results of the measurements show variations according to different sociocultural characteristics. The Functional Independence Measure of Children (WeeFIM) had not been studied in Turkish children previously. The aims of this study were to evaluate the functional disability of Turkish children with CP by using WeeFIM and to compare the results with those of healthy counterparts.

A total of 86 children aged 24 months to 120 months were included in the study. Forty-five children with CP and 41 healthy children representing the controls were evaluated with WeeFIM. Both children with CP and healthy controls were categorized into four groups according to their chronological age. The variations in the WeeFIM subsets scores (self-care, sphincter control, transfers and locomotion, communication and social cognition) and total WeeFIM scores in children with CP and healthy controls were analysed.

The children with CP had lower WeeFIM scores than healthy controls. The sphincter control subset scores of children with CP increased as they grew up. There was no statistically significant difference in all WeeFIM subset scores and the total WeeFIM scores among the four age groups of children with CP.

The WeeFIM appears to be a useful instrument for measuring the disability of Turkish children with CP. However, studies with wider series are needed to generalize our results.