Evaluation of the functional capacity of children with cerebral palsy

Purpose to describe the functional capacity of children with cerebral palsy who performed the care of Physical Therapy Specialty and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. Methods a cross sectional observational study, comprising 14 children with spastic quadriplegic (6 performed Physiotherapy and 8 performed Physiotherapy and Speech therapy). The Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI) and the Manual Abilities Classification System (GMFCS) were used to evaluate them. The associations between categorical variables were analyzed using Fisher exact test. Comparisons between means were performed using the Student t test. Results we didn’t obtain statistically significant improvement in the areas of self-care, mobility and social function between the two groups in the fields of functional skills and caregiver assistance. Conclusion the Physiotherapy group of children had higher functional scores than those in the Physiotherapy group associated with Speech Therapy, but there was no statistically significant difference between the groups. This was probably due to the small number of participants, the diversity of clinical presentation and possible differences of Physical Therapy intervention conducted in two states with very different socioeconomic situations.

本研究旨在描述接受物理治疗专科照护，以及言语、语言与听力学照护的脑瘫患儿的功能能力。方法：本研究为横断面观察性研究，纳入14名痉挛型四肢瘫患儿，其中6名仅接受物理治疗，8名同时接受物理治疗与言语治疗。采用儿童残疾评定量表（Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory, PEDI）与手动能力分类系统（Manual Abilities Classification System, GMFCS）对患儿进行评估。分类变量间的关联采用Fisher确切概率法分析，组间均数比较采用Student t检验。结果：在功能技能与照护者辅助相关领域中，两组患儿在自理、移动与社会功能方面均未出现具有统计学意义的改善。结论：仅接受物理治疗的脑瘫患儿功能评分高于同时接受物理治疗与言语治疗的患儿，但两组间差异未达到统计学显著性。该结果可能缘于样本量较小、临床表型多样，以及两个社会经济状况差异显著的地区所实施的物理治疗干预方案存在潜在差异。