Effect of balance training on psychological problems in children with spastic diplegia / Mayada Ibraheem Elmahdy Elshahawy ; Supervised Kamal Elsayed Shoukry , Kamilia Saad Abdelhamid , Nanees Essam Mohamed

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

Background: Children with spastic diplegia have associated problems according to their disability and spasticity. One of these problems is loss of postural balance. It has psychological effects on these children as they experience sad feelings, anxiety and depression due to poor body alignment, abnormal gait patterns and frequent falling. The purpose of this study: To see the effect of balance on depression and anxiety in diplegic children.Assessment: Twenty diplegic cerebral palsy children were randomly allocated into two equal groups received successive three months intervention.The control group received the traditional physical therapy program for 60 minutes. The study group received the same designed traditional physical therapy program given to the control group in addition to a specific balance program for one hour and a half.The treatment was conducted 3times/week.The evaluation was done before and after successive three months of treatment using the Pediatric Balance Scale for measuring balance and the Child Depression Inventory for measuring depression and State-Trait anxiety inventory for children to measure anxiety.Results: Data was analyzed by Mann-Whitney Test to measure the difference between the two groups and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to measure the difference within groups.There was a statistically significant improvement post-treatment of balance, anxiety and depression with a P value > 0.05in both groups with the percentage of improvement in study group more than in control group. Conclusion: Balance training has an effect on anxiety and depression in children with spastic diplegia

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