Document Type : Original Articles

Authors

• Marziye Purpirali ¹
• Jandark Eghlidi ²
• Hajar Mehdizadeh ³
• Ghorban Taghizadeh ⁴

¹ Lecturer, Occupational Therapy Department, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

² Physiotherapy Research Centre, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

³ PhD student of Neurosciences, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

⁴ Lecturer, Occupational Therapy Department, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Because of the effect of person, task and environment on the postural control of children with Hemiparetic Cerebral Palsy (HCP), different clinical and laboratory methods have been designed for postural control evaluation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between clinical and laboratory tests of mobility and balance in children with HCP.Methods: In this correlational study, twenty eight children with HCP by average age of 10.09 (±2.34) years were selected by simple non-probability sampling method. Timed Up and Go (TUG), Functional Reach (FR) and Bruininks Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP) and mean velocity, path length, total phase plane, area parameters of center of pressure fluctuations in 3 levels of postural difficulty (quiet standing on rigid surface with open and closed eyes and foam with closed eyes) and two levels of cognitive difficulty (with and without cognitive task) recorded by force plate were used as clinical and laboratory assessments respectively.Results: Among three postural tasks, the only in standing on foam with closed eyes was seen the significantly moderate to very high correlation between the all center of pressure sway measures and TUG, FR and BOTMP tests. The cognitive task in standing on foam surface condition cause to increase correlation between clinical and laboratory measures.Conclusion: The proper correlation was obtained between functional balance and mobility tests and center of pressure sway parameters in standing on foam surface with closed eyes condition.Key words: Postural control, Functional balance and mobility tests, Force plate parameters, Children, hemiparesia, cerebral palsy