Effect of Single Event Multilevel Soft Tissue Surgery on Gait Parameters in Spastic Diplegia

Abstract

Locomotion in subjects with Cerebral Palsy is complicated by a variety of deformities and their respective compensatory mechanisms. Children presenting with cerebral diplegia have reduced range of motion in their joints, short stride length, and increase in the energy requirement during standing and walking. In this study instrumented gait analysis data of 14 subjects with cerebral diplegia, prior to intervention was compared with data from similar analysis after multilevel soft tissue surgery and rehabilitation. Following intervention there was an increase in the range of motion in the hip and knee joints; stride length, single limb support and reduction in the energy cost of ambulation. Statistically significant differences were notedonly for the stride length data (p=0.004). Overall the gait was improved by multilevel soft tissue surgery, as there was an increase in the degrees of freedom of movement in the kinetic chain.

Keywords

• Spastic Diplegia
• instrumented gait analysis
• gait parameters
• soft tissue surgery