Evaluation on the therapeutic effects of digital acupoint pressure for obstetric spastic cerebral palsy

To probe the evaluation methods for effects of TCM treatment of cerebral palsy through clinical observation on the digital acupoint pressure in treating obstetric spastic cerebral palsy. From 1998-2003, 40 cases of spastic cerebral palsy were treated with digital acupoint pressure therapy. Ten indexes including intelligence, language, salivation, hand-grasping, thumb-adduction, turnover, sitting, standing, walking, and scissors-gait were divided into the 4 grades of normal, mild abnormal, moderate abnormal, and severe abnormal (dysfunction), respectively marked as 6, 4, 2, and 0 point, with 2 points increased for improving each grade of each item after the treatment. Meanwhile, the ranges were recorded and evaluated before and after the treatment on shoulder-abduction, elbow-extension, wrist-extension, forearm-backward-rotation, hip-abduction, straight-leg-lifting, knee-extension, and ankle-dorsiflexion. Those with the improvement of 10 degrees, 15 degrees, 20 degrees, 25 degrees, and 30 degrees in the range of movement of their contractured joints would obtain respectively 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 points. There were significant differences before and after the treatment in the 18 items under observation except for intelligence, with obvious improvement shown after the treatment (P<0.01), the effective rate being 92.5%. The therapeutic criteria set in this research are well established in reflecting the functional improvements of the patient.