NCT05412485

Gait Improvement After Increased Frequency of Robot-assisted Gait Training in Cerebral Palsy Children

Does Increased Frequency of Robot-assisted Gait Training Improve Gait Functions and Quality of Gait in Children With Cerebral Palsy: A Single Blinded, Randomized Pilot Study

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 20 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of Sharjah · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 6 Years – 14 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Robot-assisted gait training (RAGT) can provide a longer training duration with a higher repetition of stepping while maintaining a stable pattern of movement. However, the existing evidence of its effectiveness is not clear. The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility and the effect of increased frequency (4 times per week) of RAGT compared to the most common frequency (2 times per week). we hypothesize that increased frequency of RAGT will result in greater improvements on the gait functions. This research will investigate the effect of increased frequency on robotic assisted gait training (RAGT) in a frequency of 4 times per a week, and will compare the effect of robotic assisted gait training (RAGT) with increased frequency and with usual frequency (2 times per a week) in regards with gait functional parameters such as balance, speed, endurance, and quality of gait among cerebral palsy (CP) children's.

Detailed description

Cerebral palsy (CP) is defined as a group of disorders that affect mobility and posture with heterogeneous impairments such as muscle tone alternation, reduced selective motor control, joint contracture, postural control impairment and weakness of muscles. Independent walking is a priority goal for a lot of parents and children with CP. RAGT has been considered as a revolutionary technology for gait enhancement. Lokomat, as one of RAGT devices, provides the intensive gait training with a number of repetitions of stepping while it preserves consistent pattern of movement. Lokomat with additional virtual reality games adds fun and challenge and enhances the involvement and motivation throughout the whole session. We will use Lokomat for RAGT for 6 weeks phase for both treatement and control groups. Only difference between groups is the frequency: 4 times a week for treatment group and 2 times a week for intervention group. General gait and standing function will be measured by Gross motor function measure dimension E and D. Speed, endurance, balance, and quality of gait would be measured by 10 meter walk test, 6 minutes walk test, pediatric balance scale, and Edinburgh visual gait score. To our knowledge no previous studies investigated the effect of the increased frequency in RAGT with lokomat on improving gait speed, endurance, balance and quality in children with CP.

Conditions

• Cerebral Palsy Spastic Diplegia

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Robotic assisted gait training	Robotic assisted gait training is advanced technology used in the rehabilitation of neurological injuries and conditions like spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, cerebral palsy. It provides a repetitive task-specific motor training and modulates afferent input to spinal cord to generate rhythmic gait patterns that may be transformed to overground walking. The intensive repetitions of the rhythmic stepping movement during the training stimulates dependent plasticity and it may lead to brain reorganization. It facilitates cortical neural activities associated with motor control of walking.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-06-07
• Primary completion: 2022-07-30
• Completion: 2022-07-30
• First posted: 2022-06-09
• Last updated: 2022-06-09

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United Arab Emirates