Comparison of Effectiveness of Adeli Suit Therapy and Bobath Approach on Gross Motor Function Improvement in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Adeli Suit Therapy (AST) and Bobath approach on improvement of gross motor function in children with cerebral palsy aged 4 to 11 years of old. Materials & Methods: In this experimental and randomized clinical trial study, 24 children with cerebral palsy were selected simply according to inclusive and exclusive criteria from patients referred to ValieAsr rehabilitation center and then assigned into two Adeli Suit Thrapy and Bobath groups by simple random method. Period of therapeutic intervention was 36 sessions, 3 times per week for both groups. Assessment tool was Gross Motor Function Measure test (GMFM–66). Data was analyzed by Kolmogroff Smirnoff, Independent T-test and ANOVA for repeated measurements. Results: After intervention, the gross motor function improved significantly in both groups (P<0.001). Follow up study revealed significant improvement of functions in Adeli Suit group (P=0.007) and significant regression of functions in Bobath group (P=0.004). There was no significant difference, just after the intervention, between two groups (P=0.598), but there was significant difference between two groups at follow up assessments (P=0.002). Conclusion: Both Adeli Suit and Bobath approaches are effective in improvement of gross motor functions in children with cerebral palsy during the therapeutic sessions. At follow up study, the Adeli Suit group, were still improving their function whereas the Bobath group regressed

Visual Perceptual Skills in Normal Children Aged 7 to 13 Years in Tehran City

Objective: This study was aimed to determine visual perceptual skills of normal children aged 7 to 13 years in Tehran, comparing visual perceptual skills between boys and girls, age groups and student of different educational areas and finding the correlation among subtests with each other and subtests with total test. Materials & Methods: In this cross sectional study 788 children aged 7 to 13 years old from 40 elementary and high schools of 5 educational areas of Tehran were selected by simple randomized and proportional to size method of sampling. Subjects were categorized in 3 age groups and then they were assessed by TVPS-R. The data were analyzed by statistical tests including Kolmogorov Smirnov, Bartllet, Analyze of variances, Independent T test, Kruskal-Wallis, U mann-whitney and Spearman correlation coefficient in SPSS software. Results: According to results, standard scores for all visual perceptual skills were about average (Visual Perceptual Quotient=94.68). Analysis of data revealed significant differences among age groups in visual perceptual skills except Visual Memory and Visual Sequential Memory (from P=0.045 for Visual Closure to P<0.001 for Visual Form Constancy). Students of different educational areas in Tehran had significant differences in visual perceptual skills (P<0.001 for all visual skills). No significant differences were found between girls and boys in five of visual perceptual skills but there was significant difference between them in Visual Form Constancy (P=0.009), Visual Figure Ground (P0.617) but it was lower among subtests to each other (Rho<0.508). Conclusion: The results of this study determined the visual perceptual skills scores in normal children. These scores will play as criteria for next studies especially the ones related to abnormal children