Abstract :
Introduction: Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common physical disability in children and it represents the most frequent diagnosis of children who receive physical therapy. Quality of Life (QoL) in children with CP is a complex construct that is influenced by many factors. Gross motor function is one of them. Cerebral palsy can have a tremendous impact on the child’s capacity to carry out ADL; hence the impact on the QoL of the child and also his/her family.
Purpose: To correlate the Quality of Life of children with CP of different clinical types and Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) levels with their gross motor functions.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional analytical study was conducted on 52 children with cerebral palsy of all GMFCS levels and all clinical types with mean age 9.11 ± 3.31 years (5-18 years).Children were analyzed for their QoL using Caregiver Priorities and Child Health Index of Life with Disabilities (CPCHILD) questionnaire with respect to their gross motor functions measured using Gross Motor Functional Measure 88.
Result: The mean GMFM score was71.99 ± 32.08 and mean PBS score was 33.09 ± 21.25. Results showed moderate to strong positive correlation between gross motor functions and the quality of life between 5 subsection domains of CPCHILD with r value 0.80, 0.909, 0.563, 0.792 and 0.504 respectively. Ambulatory children with GMFCS I, II, III were having higher scores in comparison to non-ambulatory children.
Conclusion: Present study concludes that better gross motor functions reflects better quality of life of children with CP.
Keyword :
Quality of life, Cerebral palsy, Gross motor function