Study of the Effectiveness of an Interactive Robot for the Rehabilitation of the Upper Limb in Children With Cerebral Palsy by Evaluating the 3 Fields of the ICF: A Prospective, Randomized, Controlled, Simple Blind Study.

INTRODUCTION

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a major cause of impairments in child population. Indeed, CP affects two births per thousand (1). The brain damage is expressed by different neurological impairments and functional disabilities. These disabilities justify intensive and sustained multidisciplinary rehabilitation to reduce neurological impairments, to improve the activities and participation of patients, and, ultimately, their quality of life (2, 3, 4).

Robotics interest has already been shown for lower limb rehabilitation (5). The development of the upper limb rehabilitation robotic devices started later. To better stimulate brain plasticity, these tools meet the actual recommendations existing in CP's rehabilitation (4). Indeed, the robots allow the execution of a large number of movements whose quality is controlled (6). A visual interface gives the patient a feedback of its movements (7), and offers exercises oriented functional tasks that have meaning for him (8) and the possibly dive into a virtual reality. All these elements justify the clinical development of robots to assist the therapists.

In children with CP, several pilot studies have verified the clinical applicability of these tools (9-11). However, no randomized controlled study has been performed to evaluate the effectiveness of robotic-assisted therapy in children with CP (12). Moreover, no study evaluated the effect of these therapies on the three areas of the ICF : Many studies focus on impairments (e.g. muscle) without assessing the functional capacity of the patient: what about their ability in every day life?

OBJECTIVES