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Evaluation and characterization of manual reaching in children with cerebral palsy: A systematic review
Lívia Pessarelli Visicato1, Carolina Souza Neves da Costa1, Vanessa Almeida Maia Damasceno1
1Department of Physiotherapy, Neuropediatric Research Unit, Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), Brazil.
Insights
Children with cerebral palsy (CP) exhibit impaired manual reaching, showing deficits in speed and smoothness compared to typically developing children. Further research is needed to translate these findings into effective treatment strategies for improving daily activities.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Rehabilitation
- Motor Control
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Manual reaching is crucial for daily tasks.
- Children with cerebral palsy (CP) face significant challenges in manual reaching, potentially leading to functional limitations.
Approach:
- A systematic review was conducted, analyzing 17 studies.
- The review focused on evaluating and characterizing manual reaching in children with CP.
- The analysis identified aspects studied and discussed their relationship to functional levels.
Key Points:
- Children with CP demonstrate spatio-temporal deficits in reaching compared to typical children.
- Observed deficits include longer task completion times, higher peak velocity, reduced curvature index, and increased motion units, indicating less smooth and linear upper limb movements.
- Reaching performance is significantly affected by the severity of motor impairment and task variations.
Conclusions:
- Manual reaching in children with CP is characterized by quantifiable spatio-temporal deficits.
- Understanding these deficits is influenced by motor impairment levels and task demands.
- Translating these research findings into practical treatment strategies to enhance manual activity performance in children with CP requires further investigation.
Abstract:
Manual reaching is used daily to perform manipulative tasks and activities of daily routine. Children with cerebral palsy (CP) have limitations in this activity, with functional loss as a possible consequence. This review aimed to gather studies that evaluated and characterized manual reaching in children with CP, with the purpose of identifying the aspects analyzed, as well as review and discuss the results in the studies and its relationship to the children's level of functionality. 17 studies were selected for this systematic review from the search in electronic databases. The studies showed that children with CP show deficits in several spatio-temporal variables of reaching compared to typical children, such as longer time to perform the activity, higher peak velocity, lower index of curvature, and greater number of units of motion, which indicates lower smoothness and linearity of the movements of upper limbs. The performance is influenced by the level of motor impairment and various manipulations of the task. However, more studies are needed that help translating these results into treatment strategies that facilitate the performance of manual activities in children with CP.
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