Effect of backward treadmill trainingon genurecurvatum in cerebral palsied children / Ramy Abdulmoneem Abdullah Khidr ; Supervised Hebatallah Mohamed Kamal , Hassan Magdy Elbarbary , Amira Elsayed Elbagalaty

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

Background: Cerebral palsy is described as a group of disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation that are attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain. Many patients with cerebral palsy walk with a knee recurvatum pattern. A recurvatum durig gait can also be quite disabling and has been reported to cause proximal tibial deformity. Knee recurvatum has been described to occur in 8% to 40% of patients with cerebral palsy. Aim: To determine effect of backward treadmill training on genurecurvatum in cerebral palsied children. Subjects: Thirty ambulant cerebral palsied children from both sexes were selected from the outpatient clinic of Al Shohadaa Central Hospital. Their ages ranged from 4-8 years with knee hyperextension angle from 10 to 20 degrees determined by X-rays.They had no other knee deformities or fractures. They were assigned randomly into two groups of equal number, each group included 15 children; Group A: Received backward treadmill gait training exercise for three times per week over three successive months in addition to a designed physical therapy program according to each child problem. Group B:Received only a designed physical therapy program. Methods:The X-ray was used to evaluate knee joint angle (axis between femur and tibia) and Kinovea motion analysis was used to evaluate knee joint angle at midstance subphase of the stance phase during walking. For treatment: Treadmill device was used for gait training, wedges and balls for exercises.Results:There was a statistically significant decrease in the resultswhen comparing the pre and post treatment mean values of knee joint angle of both groups (A and B) (P value <0.0001 ) measured by X rays and Kinovea motion analysis software

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