IS THE OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF CEREBRAL-PALSY GAIT REPRODUCIBLE

It is important to determine the reproducibility of objective measures of gait in children with motor disorders in order that the effect of interventions to improve gait can be monitored. Data for walking velocity and vertical ground reaction force expressed as a percentage of body weight were collected from 15 normal children and 11 with spastic cerebral palsy. Five recordings were obtained for each foot of each child on 3 consecutive days, and calculations of variability made for each set of five recordings. Children with cerebral palsy had slower walking velocities and greater ground reaction force values, and both these parameters had low intraindividual variation for both normal children and those with cerebral palsy (coefficients of variation <12.5%). This good reproducibility applied to intrasubject and intraday variability; no learning effect was seen over 3 days' recordings. There was no significant difference in variability whether the first three recordings or all five were used. These techniques of gait measurement in children have good reproducibility and a potential role in the objective assessment of medical and surgical interventions.