None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Children with cerebral palsy benefit from therapy that is goal-directed in their daily activities and environment. It is hypothesised that their parent’s contribution via home exercise programming is also important for goal achievement. This hypothesis has not been tested in a randomised controlled trial, the appropriate research design for studying intervention effectiveness. Benefits of home programs have been shown in my earlier Masters pilot study, which lacked a controlled comparison group. When measuring children, any improvements observed may be due to maturation and therefore a control group is the preferable design. This study will address this gap
Interventions
Individualised occupational therapy home programs. Participants are randomised to 2intervention groups. Group 1 receives a home program for 8 weeks. Group 2 receives a home program for 4 weeks. A home program is a list of sugges
Individualised occupational therapy home programs. Participants are randomised to 2intervention groups. Group 1 receives a home program for 8 weeks. Group 2 receives a home program for 4 weeks. A home program is a list of suggested exercises, environmental modifications and parent teaching strategies provided to the family as a treatment plan aimed at reaching the parent's goals for thier child's health. The parent can self-select how long they carry out the home program for and record this on a log book provided by the investigator. Ealier research shows that families typically choose between 5-40 minutes per day, with a mean of 13 minutes (Novak, Cusick & Lowe, 2005).
Sponsors
Cerebral Palsy Institute
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
5 Months to 12 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
1. Children with cerebral palsy, who are attending school from Kindergarten to Year Six, i.e. infants and primary school age. 2. Consent to participate given by parent or ‘person responsible’Child is on a waiting list for occupational therapy at The Spastic Centre of NSW, not involved in active therapy provision. 3. At time of study enrolment, the child is not currently receiving occupational therapy from any other service provider 4. Children who have greater than 4-week wait until they will receive an occupational therapy service from The Spastic Centre of NSW6. Children where the parent has some concern about the child’s arm use.
Exclusion criteria
1. Consent not given by parent or ‘person responsible’2. Children waiting for Spastic Centre occupational therapy services that do not require or request an intervention program but rather require solely professional documentation or specialist equipment prescription, such as: letter of support for teaching assistant time in the classroom; letter of support for adaptive equipment funding; prescription of a new wheelchair or assistive technology3. Children who are receiving regular occupational therapy services from another service provider whilst they are on The Spastic Centre of NSW waiting list.
Outcome results
None listed