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Abstract
Background
In children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury, a non-use of the affected upper limb despite sufficient capacity, is sometimes observed, called developmental disregard. The combination of modified constraint-induced-movement-therapy with bimanual training is frequently applied to overcome developmental disregard in unilateral Cerebral Palsy. In the current study the effects of the combination of modified constraint-induced-movement-therapy with bimanual training are investigated in children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury in comparison to children with unilateral Cerebral Palsy. We hypothesize that the combination of modified constraint-induced-movement-therapy with bimanual training is effective in Brachial Plexus Birth Injury.
Methods
Data of 19 children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury (Mage: 4.1 years) and 18 with unilateral Cerebral Palsy (Mage: 4.5 years) were compared. The effects of modified constraint-induced-movement-therapy with bimanual training (54 h modified constraint-induced-movement-therapy, 18 h bimanual training, 8–10 weeks) was investigated by assessing spontaneous affected-upper-limb-use (“Assisting Hand Assessment”), manual abilities (“ABILHAND-kids”) and subjective performance and satisfaction of problematic bimanual activities (“Canadian Occupational Performance Measure”) at three time points (pre-treatment, post-treatment, follow-up). This data was analyzed using repeated-measures analysis.
Results
Children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury showed significant improvements on all outcome measures following modified constraint-induced-movement-therapy with bimanual training. These results were comparable to those observed in the group of children with unilateral Cerebral Palsy.
Discussion
These results suggest that modified constraint-induced-movement-therapy with bimanual training is effective in Brachial Plexus Birth Injury. They indicate a comparable improved bimanual performance in children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury than in unilateral Cerebral Palsy and suggests that both groups of children have affectively overcome their developmental disregard.
Children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury frequently experience difficulties in activities of daily living.
It has recently been suggested that children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury may also show a non-use of the affected upper limb despite sufficient capacity, called developmental disregard.
Children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury and developmental disregard might therefore benefit from intensive therapies aimed at overcoming developmental disregard, originally developed for children with unilateral Cerebral Palsy.
A combination of modified Constrained-Induced Movement Therapy with intensive Bimanual Training has shown to be affective in children with unilateral Cerebral Palsy.
In a small sample, this study shows that a combination of modified Constrained-Induced Movement Therapy with intensive bimanual training is effective in children with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury, comparable and even more than in unilateral Cerebral Palsy.
IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION
Acknowledgements
We want to thank all children and their families who allowed us for using these data.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
The internal review board of the Sint Maartenskliniek Nijmegen approved the use of the reported data for the current retrospective database study.
Consent for publication
All parents signed written informed consent to allow use of the clinical data for scientific purposes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Availability of data and material
The datasets generated during and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.