Relationship Between Motor Impairments of Hand and Manual Ability in Spastic Cerebral Palsy Children

Introduction

Cerebral palsy is a static neurologic condition resulting from brain injury that occurs before cerebral development incomplete. Hand impairments are related to the manual ability. Hand impairments are not rare in the cerebral palsy but they are not considered significantly. We assessed the hand impairments in relation to manual ability amongst Cerebral palsy children who were spastic diplegics and quadriplegics.

Material and Methods

Thirty cerebral palsy children were assessed. Hand impairments included grip strength, fine finger dexterity, gross manual dexterity and these were assessed by hydraulic hand handle dynamometer, pegboards and box and block test respectively. Manual ability was assessed by Abilhand kid’s questionnaire. All the subjects according to the inclusion criteria were included in the study. One time assessment was taken. For the grip strength and fine finger dexterity three readings were taken and average of these three readings was taken as the final score. For box and block test single reading was taken. Spasticity was assessed by the Modified Ashworth Scale. Results were calculated by using Pearson’s correlation.

Results

There is a significant correlation between grip strength, fine finger dexterity, gross manual dexterity and manual ability. Grip strength has correlation of -0.459(P=