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Helping Children with Cerebral Palsy: Locomotor Treadmill Training or Strength Training

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INTRODUCTION Cerebral Palsy is a condition that involves the brain and nervous system which results in disorders in movement, learning, hearing, seeing and thinking. There has been a rise on the number of children who are diagnosed with CP since the 1960’s (Mattern-Baxter, 2010). After a child has been diagnosed with CP, it is important to help them regain their ability to walk. Cerebral palsy is a permanent but not unchanging condition that requires the help of medical professionals, the children and their families (Mattern-Baxter, 2010). Since the recent increase of the number of children diagnosed with CP, researchers has emphasized the importance of intensive intervention at an early stage (Prosser, Lee, VanSant, Barbe, & Lauer, …show more content…

Some of the keywords used are ‘Cerebral Palsy’, ‘treadmill’, ‘children’ and ‘training’. Three of the references were selected. The criteria used to select these references were mainly the focus on Cerebral Palsy in children and improving their ambulation. One article looked at strength training and another article looked at locomotor treadmill training. The last article was an article that researched and compared lower extremity muscle activation between children with and without CP. Comparing these articles can help determine which method is most effective for a child who is diagnosed with CP. RESULTS In the study by Damiano et al. (2010), 8 children with CP participated in an 8-week progressive resistance exercise program. There were 3 males and 5 females ages 5 ½ to 13 ¼ years old. The Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) was used to indicate how functional the children are individually. This can influence the results of the research. Three of these children were classified GMFCS level III, two were classifies as GMFCS II, and one child was classified as GMFCS I. The intensity and difficulty was adjusted individually based on their ability. These children met the addition criteria’s for this research which included an 8 week strengthening program. The strength training program included a 1 hour session per week for 8 consecutive weeks (Damiano et al., 2010). The specialized

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