Article

Efficacy of treatment to improve upper-limb activity of children with
cerebral palsy (CP) is typically evaluated outside clinical/laboratory
environments through functional outcome measures
(e.g. ABILHAND kids). This study
evaluates CPKAT, a new portable laptop-based tool designed to objectively measure
upper-limb kinematics in children with CP. METHODS:
Seven children with
unilateral CP (2 females; mean age 10 years 2 months (SD 2 years 3 months),
median age 9 years 6 months, range 6 years 5 months,
MACS II-IV) were evaluated
on copying, tracking and tracing tasks at their homes using CPKAT. CPKAT recorded
parameters relating to spatiotemporal hand movement: path length, movement time,
smoothness, path accuracy and root mean square error.
The Wilcoxon signed ranks
test explored whether CPKAT could detect differences between the affected and
less-affected limb. RESULTS: CPKAT detected intra-limb differences for movement
time and smoothness (aiming), and path length (tracing). No intra-limb tracking
differences were found, as hypothesised. These findings are consistent with other
studies showing that movements of the impaired upper limb in unilateral CP are
slower and less smooth. CONCLUSION: CPKAT provides a potential solution for
home-based assessment of upper limb kinematics in children with CP to supplement
other measures and assess functional intervention outcomes. Further validation is
required. Implications for Rehabilitation This paper demonstrates the feasibility
of evaluating upper limb kinematics in home using CPKAT, a portable laptop-based
evaluation tool. We found that CPKAT is easy to set-up and use in home
environments and yields useful kinematic measures of upper limb function. CPKAT
can complement less responsive patient reported or subjectively evaluated
functional measures for a more complete evaluation of children with cerebral
palsy. Thus, CPKAT can help guide a multi-disciplinary team to more effective
intervention and rehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy.

Langue : ANGLAIS