A Case Study: Effect of Progressive Resistance and Balance Training on Upper Trunk Muscle Strength of Children with Cerebral Palsy

• Published in: Majallah-i ʻilmī-i ṭibb va tavānbakhshī Vol. 17; no. 1; pp. 84 - 93
• Main Authors: Mehrnoush Ismailiyan, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, Fahimeh Esfarjany, Alireza Ghardashi Afousi, Ahmadreza Movahedi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Persian
• Published: University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences 01.04.2016
• Subjects: Cerebral palsy; Muscle strength; Organizational case studies; Resistance training
• ISSN: 1607-2960; 1607-2960

Objective Non-progressive cerebral palsy (CP) is due to abnormal development of brain and or braindamages before, during, or after birth. The reason of cerebral palsy is brain damage or its abnormaldevelopment. Most of these problems happen when the child is in mother's womb, but the chance ishigh that it happens in the first 2 years of life, when the brain develops. One of the commonest and mostimportant debilitating signs of cerebral palsy is damage to higher functions, in such a way that the controlof moves in grasping and leaving get damaged and in the end, the strength of hand for planning ofmovement decreases. Several studies have examined the effect of resistance training on muscle strengthof patients with CP, while none of them has examined the effect of progressive resistance and balancetraining in children with CP. This study aimed to investigate the effects of progressive resistance and balancetraining on upper trunk muscle strength of children with CP. Materials & Methods Three boys with cerebral palsy (two patients who were 7 years old and one whowas 6) participated in this research. In this study, single subject research method with A-B-A plan wasused. Progressive resistance and balance training were administered for 3 days per week for 8 weeks.Wrist and elbow flexor muscles strength was measured by PowerTrack Õ dynamometer (manufacturedby JTECK with 4.4 N threshold). Results According to visual analysis of data diagrams and based on descriptive statistical indexes andvisual analyses, the results showed that resistance and balance training in intervention situation comparedto baseline increased the strength of elbow flexor (percentages of non-overlapping data for thefirst and second participants were 75% and for the third participant, 100%). The strength of upper trunkmuscles after intervention hve improved compared to baseline; however, one month after intervention,the trend was pretty stabilized. Conclusion The results of this study showed that 8 weeks of progressive resistance and balance training(in combination) has increased muscle strength in children with cerebral palsy. The present researchshowed that resistance and balanced trainings have significant effects on muscle strength of childrenwith CP. It seems that these practices have been effective, especially for the wrist flexor and elbow flexormuscles. It can be said that the increase in the muscles of children with CP was due to practice principlealong with increase in neuronal compatibility. One of the important points in the effectiveness of resistancetraining is the intensity of training. The results showed that resistance and balanced trainingsincrease the muscle strength of children with CP. This power could be partly due to increase in musclevolume and partly due to anabolic hormones.