This paper proposes a simple method of hand skill assessment in children that can be useful in clinical practice. A reduced 5-hole version of Annett's Peg Moving Task was used to quantify hand skill bilaterally in 435 normally developing preschool and school-children, and adolescents aged 3-18 years from Brazil. The cross-cultural validity of the normative data obtained in Brazil was verified i...

Submitted by: Ramachandiran Nandhagopal, MBBS, DM. From the Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Al-Khod, Muscat, Oman (Formerly from the Department of Neurology, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences [SVIMS], Tirupathi, India). Address correspondence to: Dr. Ramachandiran Nandhagopal, Consultant Neurologist, Department of Medicine, Neurology...

BACKGROUND In children with spastic diplegia, surgery for ankle equinus contracture is associated with a high prevalence of both overcorrection, which may result in a calcaneal deformity and crouch gait, and recurrent equinus contracture, which may require revision surgery. We sought to determine if conservative surgery for equinus gait, in the context of multilevel surgery, could result in the...

A pilot case study examining the effects of inhibitive ankle-foot orthoses on functional motor performance in a child with spastic diplegia is presented. Both qualitative and quantitative changes occurred, lending support to the efficacy of inhibitive orthoses in improving motor performance in children with cerebral palsy.

BACKGROUND Intoeing is a frequent gait problem in children with cerebral palsy. It is essential to determine the cause(s) of intoeing when surgical intervention is being planned. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of various causes of intoeing in children with cerebral palsy and to determine whether the causes differ between children with bilateral and those with unilatera...

BACKGROUND Spasticity is a motor disorder that interferes with mobility and affects the quality of life. Different approaches have been utilized to address patients with spastic diplegia, among which is selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR). Although SDR has been shown to be efficacious in treating spastic patients, many neurologists and neurosurgeons are not well aware of the procedure, its indicat...

The later neurodevelopmental progress of 15 babies who had neonatal periventricular echodensities or flares in the absence of any intraventricular bleeding or subsequent cystic degeneration was studied. At follow up four infants had neurological abnormalities, including spastic diplegia (n = 2). These findings suggest that transient flares may represent mild periventricular leucomalacia with co...