Evaluation of physical therapy service for severely mentally impaired students with cerebral palsy

The effects of two types of physical therapy service were studied over a five-month period in 19 severely mentally impaired cerebral palsied students aged 3 to 22 years. The students were paired and assigned to either a direct therapy treatment group or a supervised therapy management group. Ten similar students in a comparison group received no physical therapy. The study showed no significant difference in development of mature developmental reflexes, improvement of gross motor skills, or increase of passive joint motion among similar students placed in the direct, supervised, and comparison groups. This pilot study is not intended to decide the issue of physical therapy for these students. It does, however, indicate that objective tests may be used reliably to measure three major areas of sensory motor development. More extensive and longer-term studies are needed to determine the most beneficial form of physical therapy for this double-disability population.