Types of Upper Limb and Hand in Patients With Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy (CP) has been defined as "a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture causing activity limitation(s) that are attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain". Investigators previously developed two classification systems, one for the upper limb and one for the hand, based on 100 films of patients with cerebral palsy. Separate classifications were developed following an initial study in which investigators found no correlations between upper limb and hand patterns, meaning that specific upper limb patterns are not always associated with specific hand patterns. Thumb patterns were not included in these classifications since robust classifications already exist, moreover thumb patterns are independent from hand patterns. The aim is to evaluate the inter- and intra-rater reliability of two previously developed classifications of upper limb and hand patterns.