Postural control during sit-to-stand movement and its relationship with upright position in children with hemiplegic spastic cerebral palsy and in typically developing children

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:The purpose of this study was to compare postural control in typically developing (TD) children and children with cerebral palsy (CP) during the sit-to-stand (STS) movement and to assess the relationship between static (during static standing position) and dynamic postural control (during STS movement) in both groups. METHOD:The center of pressure (CoP) behavior of 23 TD children and 6 children with spastic hemiplegic CP (Gross Motor Function Classification System [GMFCS] I and II) was assessed during STS movement performance and during static standing conditions with the use of a force plate. The data obtained from the force plate were used to calculate CoP variables: anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) amplitudes of CoP displacement and the area and velocity of CoP oscillation. RESULTS:According to the Mann-Whitney test, children with CP exhibited higher CoP values in all of the analyzed variables during the beginning of STS movement. Pearson's correlation verified a positive correlation between the CoP variables during both static conditions and the performance of STS movement. CONCLUSIONS:Children with spastic hemiplegic CP present major postural oscillations during the beginning of STS movement compared with typical children. Moreover, the observed relationship between postural control in static and dynamic conditions reveals the importance of body control in the static position for the performance of functional activities that put the body in motion, such as STS movement.

Influence of age, sex, and visual information on postural control in children

“…Moreover, with PC variability from the infant period, the child has more AP strategy to maintain sitting and dorsal decubitus positions 22 . On the contrary, the ML plan corresponds to hip strategies in more extreme oscillation situations 23 . Table 2 shows that the visual system proved to be more influential for OV_AP (13%) than COP (5%) and OV_ML (3%), probably because the AP oscillation is the baseline, as the threshold for detecting AP oscillations is less than that for ML.…”

Dual‐task effects on postural sway during sit‐to‐stand movement in children with Down syndrome

“…For all the variables, statistical analyses were based on the mean value of the three attempts performed by the participants (Pavão et al . ; Pavão and Rocha ).…”

Inter-Rater Reliability, Concurrent Validity and Sensitivity of Current Methods to Assess Trunk Function in Boccia Players with Cerebral Palsy

“…The low relevance of dynamic trunk control to be classified as BC1 and BC2 also seems supported by a potential floor effect observed in the dynamic tasks, which was more evident in the BC2 group than in the BC1. The Boccia players with the highest impairment present a severe trunk muscular weakness and altered selective motor control [22], which hinders them from keeping a vertical position out of the wheelchair and dynamically controlling the trunk [23]. From a clinical point of view, being able to accomplish the dynamic tasks could be reasonably used as a "cut-off" point when evaluating different levels of trunk functionality (i.e., more or less impaired) in this population.…”