Gait pattern differences in children with unilateral cerebral palsy.

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) often have atypical body posture patterns and abnormal gait patterns resulting from functional strategies to compensate for primary anomalies that are directly attributable to damage to the central nervous system. Our previous study revealed two different postural patterns in children with unilateral CP: (1) a pattern with overloading of the affected body side and (2) a pattern with under-loading of the affected side. The purpose of present study was to test whether different gait patterns dependent on weight distribution between the affected and unaffected body sides could be detected in these children. The study included 45 outpatients with unilateral CP and 51 children with mild scoliosis (reference group). The examination consisted of two inter-related parts: paedobarographic measurements of the body mass distribution between the body sides and three-dimensional instrumented gait analysis. Using cluster analysis based on the Gillette Gait Index (GGI) values, three gait patterns were described: a scoliotic gait pattern and two hemiplegic gait patterns, corresponding to overloading/under-loading of the hemi-side, which are the pro-gravitational gait pattern (PGP) and the anti-gravitational gait pattern (AGP), respectively. The results of this study showed that subjects with AGP presented a higher degree of deviation from the normal gait than children with PGP. This proof that there are differences in the GGI between the AGP and PGP could be a starting point to identify kinematic differences between these gaits in a follow-up study.