Role of treadmill training on gait and balance in children with hemiparetic cerebral palsy / Sawsan Abd Elmonem Ali Mohamed ; Supervised Gehan Hassan Elmeniawy , Ahmed Mahmoud Kholief , Nahed Shukri Thabet

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

The purpose of this study was to evaluate gait and balance in hemiparetic cerebral palsied children following participation in physical therapy program which included selected exercises program and treadmill training; Thirty hemiparetic cerebral palsied children from both sexes (12 girls and 18 boys), their age ranged from six to eight years old, were selected from the outpatient clinic of the Faculty of Physical Therapy, Cairo University. They were classified randomly into two groups of equal numbers; control group (A) and study group(B). Gait parameters (average walking speed, average step length, time on each foot) were assessed using the Biodex gait trainer 2 and Balance(overall stability index, anteroposterior stability index, mediolateral stability index) using the Biodex balance system before and after participation in the treatment programs. Pre treatment results of this study revealed non significant difference between the two groups, while the results revealed statistically significant improvement in all the measuring variables in group (A) and group (B) when comparing their pre and post treatment mean values. However, significant difference was observed when comparing the post treatment mean values of the two groups (A and B) in favor of group (B). It could be concluded that, treadmill training program may be used in addition to traditional physical therapy programs to improve gait and balance in children with hemiparetic cerebral palsy

Issued also as CD