Comparison of Pulmonary Function in Children with Cerebral Palsy and Normally Developed Children

Abstract

Introduction: Cerebral Palsy is one of the most common neurological disorders in children. It is characterised by varying degrees of disability affecting multiple domains. Respiratory complications, especially in severely disabled cerebral palsy patients are a major cause of morbidity and mortality. However, respiratory deficiencies in children with cerebral palsy is often overlooked and rarely assessed in the clinical setting. Aim: To assess the pulmonary function in children with cerebral palsy and compare the same with normally developed children. Materials and Methods: Thirty seven patients diagnosed with spastic cerebral palsy in the age range of 5-18 years and 37 age matched normally developed controls were enrolled. Assessment of pulmonary function in terms of Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), Forced Expiratory Volume in 1st second, FEV1 / FVC, Peak Expiratory Flow (PEF), Forced expiratory flow over 25-75% of FVC (FEF25-75), Inspiratory Reserve Volume (IRV), Expiratory Reserve Volume (ERV), Tidal Volume (TV) and Vital Capacity (VC) was done for each subject. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 21.0 and a p-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Most of the children with cerebral palsy were found to have lower FVC, FEV1 , PEF25-75, IRV, ERV, TV and VC in comparison to normally developed children indicative of predominantly restrictive pulmonary pathology. Conclusion: Routine pulmonary function testing in cerebral palsy children may reveal compromised pulmonary function. This will enable early therapeutic intervention for management of respiratory dysfunction in these children.

Keywords

• neurological disorder
• paediatrics
• respiratory dysfunction