Head and Trunk Movements During Turning Gait in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Thirty children with cerebral palsy (CP) and 22 typical developing (TD) were tested with 3D-gait analysis. At turning, trunk rotation was larger in CP2 (GMFCS II) than in TD and CP1 (GMFCS I), and head flexion was larger in CP3 (GMFCS III) than TD. Maximum head and trunk flexion values during the entire trial were larger in CP3 than in the other groups, and trunk flexion was larger in CP2 than in TD. Trial time increased with GMFCS-level. Less trunk rotation than TD and CP1 reflects spatial insecurity in CP2, which in CP3 is compensated by the walker. The flexed head and trunk in CP3 and trunk in CP2 may reflect deficits in proprioception and sensation requiring visual control of the lower limbs.

Head and trunk kinematics and kinetics in normal and cerebral palsy gait: a systematic review

“…The selected articles with characteristics findings have been shown in Tables 2 and 3. [13] 2018 Cross-sectional 52 30 22 9.1-11.7 1-3 [14] 2017 Cross-sectional 72 52 20 8.5-14.5 1-2 [15] 2016 Cross-sectional 52 30 22 9.1-11.7 1-3 [16] 2016 Cross-sectional 40 20 20 2-9 1-3 [4] 2016 Cross-sectional 50 26 24 4-12 -17] 2014 Cross-sectional 36 16 20 8-14 - [18] 2014 Cross-sectional 40 23 17 8-18 - [19] 2014 Cross-sectional 34 17 17 5-18 1-3 [20] 2014 Cross-sectional 114 92 22 0-25 1-3 [6] 2014 Cross-sectional 32 16 16 9-13 1-2 [21] 2014 Cross-sectional 70 41 29 5-18 1-3 [22] 2014 Cross-sectional 107 92 15 5-30 1-3 [23] 2014 Cross-sectional 20 20 0 5-15 1-2 [24] 2013 Cross-sectional 100 100 0 8-15 1-3 [12] 2013 Cross-sectional 40 20 20 2-10 1-2 [25] 2011 Cross-sectional 56 26 30 8-15 1-3 [26] 2013 Cross-sectional 48 31 17 11-26 1-2 [27] 2013 Cross-sectional 149 122 27 17-23 1-3…”

“…In our review, we found that the most common motion analysis tool used for kinematics was VICON motion analysis system [4,13,15,18,20,22,23,26,33] whereas for kinetics force platform was common in practice [7,28]. The details on motion analysis system could be seen from Table 3.…”

“…Due to the developmental changes that occur in children as they grow, longitudinal studies are needed to identify the relationship between age and postural control and its impact on gait. Most of the studies compared CP children with age-matched TD children [4,6,7,12,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][27][28][29][30][31][32]34,35] except two studies did not have TD as a comparable group [11,33]. Considering age-matched TD children in the gait analysis could provide accurate and effective measures of comparison regarding functional capacity and postural deviation from the baseline.…”

“…The participants were assessed for their functional capacity and categorised according to Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS). Six studies included participants with a GMFCS score of I-II [7,12,14,23,27,29] whereas nine authors categorised their participants under GMFCS score of I-III [13,15,16,[19][20][21][22]24,25,28,30]. However, nine studies did not use GMFCS for functional classification and categorisation of the studied sample population [4,6,11,17,18,31,32,34,35].…”

“…Regarding recruitment source and strategy, it could be suggested that many studies failed to report this information. Three authors reported hospital outpatient clinic as the recruitment source [19,21,35] whereas other five authors found their participants from the university and hospital laboratory database [12,13,15,22,29].…”