Abstract
Purpose:
: Infantile cerebral palsy (ICP) is a motor condition that imposed profound limitations in the development of the sufferer. Treatment is multidimensional and seeks to help the person to develop as many motor skills as possible. The visual therapy (VT) is an indispensable link in the integral treatment of ICP. The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of an integral VT regime on the levels of attentiveness in patients with ICP.
Methods:
Twenty eight ICP patients were retrospectively evaluated. The records of patients who consecutively had at least six continuous months of treatment were included. All individuals included underwent multidisciplinary care (psychology, physical rehabilitation, vision therapy, education, social work, optometry and audiometry). Patients were assessed periodically in terms of motor skills, ability to read and write, and development of visual attentiveness. A weighted score that considered time visual of attentiveness and quality of visual tracking was used to determine improvement.
Results:
Results: Records of 38 individuals (15 female and 23 male) with a mean age of 18.0 years (range 4-39 years, SD = 7.8 ) were evaluated. ICP type was distributed as primarily sufferer of spastic cuadripesia (n = 20), athetoid cases (n = 12 ), and miscellaneous character (n = 6 ). The severity of the condition was severe in most cases (n = 24), and less often moderate (n = 8) and mild (n = 6). All patients received visual therapy for at least 8 months, with a pre-treatment score (mean = 3.91, median = 4, range = 2-7) that was significantly lower as compared to the post- treatment value (mean = 5.08, median = 5, range = 2.8, p = 0.00038; signed ranks test of Wilcoxon). Likewise, the proportion of subjects who improved their score above the care cutoff (≥ 5) after the intervention was also significant (p = 0.006, chi square test), was also significantly increased the proportion of individuals who improved writing level (p = 0.0026, chi square), but no difference in reading level (p = 0.075).
Conclusions:
Our study suggests that a comprehensive system of VT appears to be beneficial in a group of patients with PCI in terms of a significant improvement in the levels of care and developmental writing.
Keywords: 760 visual search •
465 clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: systems/equipment/techniques •
462 clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: outcomes/complications