Feasibility of a Home-Based Mirror Therapy Program in Children with Unilateral Spastic Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Children with Unilateral Spastic Cerebral Palsy (US CP) have motor and somatosensory impairments that affect one side of their body, impacting upper limb functioning. These impairments contribute negatively to children’s bimanual performance and quality of life. Intensive home-based therapies have been developed and have demonstrated their feasibility for children with US CP and their parents, especially when therapies are designed with the proper coaching of families. Mirror Therapy (MT) is being studied to become an approachable intensive and home-based therapy suitable for children with US CP. The aim of this study is to analyze the feasibility of a five-week home-based program of MT for children with US CP that includes coaching by the therapist. Six children aged 8–12 years old performed the therapy for five days per week, 30 min per day. A minimum of 80% of compliance was required. The feasibility included compliance evaluations, total dosage, perceived difficulty of the exercises, and losses of follow-ups. All children completed the therapy and were included in the analysis. The total accomplishment was 86.47 ± 7.67. The perceived difficulty of the exercises ranged from 2.37 to 4.51 out of 10. In conclusion, a home-based program of Mirror Therapy is a safe, cost-efficient, and feasible therapy for children with US CP when the therapist is involved as a coach during the entire program.

Quantifying similarities between MediaPipe and a known standard for tracking 2D hand trajectories

“…work is needed to assess its accuracy and feasibility for tracking 3D fine upper-limb movements, which when coupled with this 2D analysis, may provide a comprehensive assessment of movement form and outcome. Furthermore, equipment-free movement assessment tools such as MediaPipe provide a fruitful avenue for the assessment of home-based -upper limb focused -therapies which show to be effective (e.g., [41]; [42]; [43]; [44]). For instance, patients may record themselves performing a task via mobile phone and send these to their physiotherapist for documentation and assessment.…”