Standing Training with Manual Body Weight Support to Improve Standing in Nonambulant Children with Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy in the Gaza Strip

Abstract

The aim of the study was to identify improvement in standing ability in children with spastic diplegia Cerebral Palsy who are nonambulant after 21 weeks of standing training with manual BWS intervention conjunct with regular stretching exercises. Design: Setting: home based rehabilitation. Design: pre and post experimental design. Subject: 15 children of moderate to severe spastic diplegic cerebral palsy children aged form 4-8 years old at level III-IV of gross motor function classification system were selected randomly according to specific criteria to participate in the program. Intervention: participants underwent standing training with manual body weight support twice a week for 18 weeks over a period of 21 weeks. Main measures of progress during training: the gross motor function measure-88 was used to assessed the performance of all children sample in dimensions A, B, C, and D twice immediately before and after training. Result: there was a highly significant differences in the dimension A, B, C, and D of the gross motor function measure-88 scores of children by a mean difference of 5.3% in total goal of gross motor function and 4.42% in standing dimension after 18 weeks of standing training with body weight support regarding to gross motor function measure-88. Fourteen out fifteen children demonstrate improvement in their standing ability after 18 weeks of standing training with body weight support. Conclusion: standing training with manual partial body weight support improved standing ability in addition to filling gaps in gross motor functions that preceded standing in 15 nonambulant children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy who could not support own weight on their legs and underlying the need for intensive application of STBWS.