A preliminary study describing body position in daily life in children with severe cerebral palsy using a wearable device

Abstract

Purpose. The effects of gravity and immobilisation are regarded as factors in the development of spinal deformity in cerebral palsy (CP). This study was to assess the body positions in daily life of children with CP using a wearable device.

Method. Four institutionalised children with severe quadriplegic CP participated in this study. Four age-matched children without disability also participated as healthy controls. The participants wore a body position recorder throughout their normal daily activities for a period of 24 h. After the body position data were recorded, the amount of time spent by each subject in upright, supine, prone, and left and right lateral lying positions and the frequency of positional change were computed.

Results. The pattern of body position change in daily life was clearly different among children with CP and between children with CP and healthy controls. Children with CP spent less time in the upright position and remained in one position for longer periods of time than the control children.

Conclusions. Twenty-four-hour monitoring could provide quantitative information about body position, the frequency of body position changes and the period of time spent in a preferred body position, with possible implications for preventing spinal deformity.

Keywords:

• Cerebral palsy
• postural management
• deformity

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Paul D. Andrew for his suggestions in the preparation of this article. We also would like to thank Marie Takasawa, PT, Chika Kuwabara, PT, Keiko Kimura, PT and Maki Kubota, PT for their assistance with data collection.

Declaration of interest:

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. This work has been supported by KAKENHI (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, grant number 18500420).