Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Physical Therapy - Department of Growth and Developmental Disorders in Pediatrics

Of the study was to investigate the influence of the selected elbow angles (0, 30, 90 degree elbow flexion) on the power of hand grip and the fine hand skills in spastic diplegic cerebral palsied children and compare them with normal healthy children. Fifty spastic cerebral palsy children of both sexes, from six to eight years old. Another group of fifty normal healthy children of same age were chosen for the control group. They were recruited from out clinic of Faculty of physical therapy - Cairo university and out clinic of physical therapy department of pediatric hospital of Cairo university AbuAlresh. Baseline pneumatic bulb hand dynamometer was used for measuring hand grip strength, while the fine hand skills was evaluated by using the peabody developmental motor Scales (visual-motor integration subtest). The different elbow angles were fixed by using special design of static elbow splint at 0, 30, 90 degree elbow flexion. The results of this study showed that there was a significant increase in hand power grip strength at 0{u00BA} elbow flexion compared with 30{u00BA} and 90{u00BA} elbow flexion in both cerebral palsy and normal children group (p=0.0001) and a significant increase in median value of standard score of the visual motor integration subtest of the peabody developmental motor scale at 30{u00BA} and 90{u00B0} elbow flexion compared with 0{u00BA} elbow flexion in both groups of the study (p=0.0001). Moreover, there is moderate positive significant correlation between hand power and standard score at 0, 30 and 90 degree elbow flexion in both groups of the study

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