Kinematic Deviations In Children With Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

In gait analysis, a large portion of the work consists in finding the underlying causes of the abnormal movement observed during walking. The patient’s kinematics of walking is compared to that of typically developed children and the deviations are further analysed. Over the years, clinicians have observed multiple-joints kinematics deviations that were frequent in children with cerebral palsy and devised gait patterns in order to group patients and support management algorithms. However, the gait patterns are broad tools and cannot render the complexity and varying degrees of impairments seen in children with cerebral palsy. To devise individualised management plan, clinicians prefer to list single joint kinematic deviations and to link these with underlying impairments. This chapter will present the main clinical gait patterns for children with unilateral or bilateral spastic palsy in the first part and the principal single joint/plane kinematic deviations together with their associated impairments in the second part