Li G, Duan J, Cong Y, Zhou D and Fan Y
Introduction: Cerebral palsy is characterized by a group of posture and movement disorder which can be aggravated. Children with cerebral palsy are lacking plantar cutaneous afferent which provides information to control upright posture. A new approach to induce postural response by plantar vibratory stimulation was suggested for children with cerebral palsy.
Methods: Seven children with cerebral palsy, five boys and two girls, aged 11.41 (1.97) years with diagnoses of spastic diplegia, participated in this study. The participants stood barefooted, with their vision and auditory perception blocked, on the standing frame placed on the force plate. Twelve vibration conditions under three frequencies (20, 60 and 100 Hz) and four locations (left forefoot, right forefoot, left rear foot and right rear foot) were tested for every participant. Center of pressure coordinates were collected at a sampling rate of 200 Hz for a period of 44s.
Results: The height of standing frame had negligible effect on the center of pressure. The postural adjustments were significantly direction-specific when the vibration was applied on different plantar surfaces. Vibration on the rear foot resulted in a forward body tilt while the vibration on the forefoot resulted in a backward body tilt. The postural response was oriented to the right when the left foot was vibrated and to the left when the right foot was vibrated. There were significant differences across frequencies of stimulation on every location (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Plantar vibratory stimulation can produce direction-specific body tilts in children with cerebral palsy. Applying appropriate vibration stimulation on plantar surface is suggested to be a new rehabilitation training method for cerebral palsy rehabilitation to promote balance and posture control.
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