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Is the objective assessment of cerebral palsy gait reproducible?
M Kirkpatrick1, R Wytch, G Cole
1Department of Child Health, Medical School, University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Insights
Objective gait measures in children with motor disorders, including spastic cerebral palsy, show excellent reproducibility. This supports their use in monitoring the effectiveness of gait interventions.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Biomechanical Engineering
- Rehabilitation Medicine
Background:
- Assessing gait in children with motor disorders is crucial for monitoring intervention effectiveness.
- Objective gait measures require high reproducibility for reliable tracking of progress.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the reproducibility of objective gait measurements in children with and without motor disorders.
- To evaluate the potential of these measures for assessing interventions.
Main Methods:
- Collected walking velocity and vertical ground reaction force data from 15 typically developing children and 11 with spastic cerebral palsy.
- Obtained five recordings per foot per child over three consecutive days.
- Calculated intraindividual variation (coefficients of variation < 12.5%) for each parameter.
Main Results:
- Children with cerebral palsy exhibited slower walking velocities and higher ground reaction forces.
- Both walking velocity and ground reaction force demonstrated low intraindividual variation in all children.
- High reproducibility was observed across intrasubject and intraday measurements, with no learning effect over three days.
Conclusions:
- Objective gait measurement techniques in children demonstrate good reproducibility.
- These validated methods can reliably assess the impact of medical and surgical interventions on gait in pediatric populations.
Abstract:
It is important to determine the reproducibility of objective measures of gait in children with motor disorders in order that the effect of interventions to improve gait can be monitored. Data for walking velocity and vertical ground reaction force expressed as a percentage of body weight were collected from 15 normal children and 11 with spastic cerebral palsy. Five recordings were obtained for each foot of each child on 3 consecutive days, and calculations of variability made for each set of five recordings. Children with cerebral palsy had slower walking velocities and greater ground reaction force values, and both these parameters had low intraindividual variation for both normal children and those with cerebral palsy (coefficients of variation < 12.5%). This good reproducibility applied to intrasubject and intraday variability; no learning effect was seen over 3 days' recordings. There was no significant difference in variability whether the first three recordings or all five were used. These techniques of gait measurement in children have good reproducibility and a potential role in the objective assessment of medical and surgical interventions.