Effect of Weight on Hip Excursion During Gait

Effect of Weight on Hip Excursion During Gait in Children With Diplegia

Background: Children with diplegia had considerably larger hip and knee excursion during gait cycle than did normal developing children.

Objective: To investigate the effect of using weight around the ankle on hip excursion in children with diplegia.

Fifty children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy were assigned into two groups at random (A, B). Both groups had received the same prescribed exercise program with classical gait training for group A and gait training while using weight around ankle for group B. Treatment was conducted for one hour three sessions per week for successive 3 months. Two-dimensional (2D) gait analysis was used to evaluate hip excursion throughout the gait cycle before and after three months of therapy.

Inclusion Criteria:

• able to follow simple basic commands,
• identified with gait abnormalities described as level II on Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS).
• diagnosed as spastic diplegia.

Exclusion Criteria:

• severe visual or auditory problems,
• lower limb surgical orthopaedic surgery or
• BOTOX injection in the six months preceding the start of the study,
• and uncontrolled seizures.