Effects of Functional Electrical Stimulation on Gait in Children With Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common neuromuscular disorder among children, resulting from a non-progressive injury during early brain development which leads to impairment of movement and posture. Muscle weakness and spasticity associated with CP limit the joint range of motion and negatively impact ambulatory ability. Most ambulatory children with CP are prescribed with ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) to improve ankle position and stability and to maintain muscle range. Nevertheless, AFOs may also restrict desired motions and may exacerbate muscle weakness and atrophy. During the last years a novel method is being used for treating upper motor neuron drop foot, by means of dynamic orthoses, namely Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES). These FES devices cause dorsiflexion of foot by stimulating the peroneal nerve and activating the tibialis anterior muscle. Most of the studies of FES devices were conducted on adult population. These studies showed improvement in laboratory and functional gait parameters. There are relatively few studies on children with hemiplegic or diplegic CP with favorable results. There is no solid evidence whether the improvements seen in laboratory setting of children with CP, are reflected on functional ambulation in daily life. In addition, there are no defined parameters which could predict the response to FES among those children. The aim of this study is to determine whether using FES device (WalkAide; Innovative Neurotronics, Austin, TX, USA) improves daily motor function and gait parameters in children with spastic hemiplegic or diplegic CP. additionally, we aim to define clinical and biomechanical parameters that can predict a favorable response to using the FES device.