Some clinical characteristics of children with paralytic poliomyelitis referred for physiotherapy.

One hundred and fifty-two case records of poliomyelitis children were studied to examine the clinical characteristics of the patients. They were the random first 152 cases referred and hence constituted a representative study. The results showed that there was a preponderance of males in the data. The highest incidence was among children in the 13-24 month age group. Eighty-eight per cent of the children suffered from paralysis of the lower limb while 11.3 per cent suffered from involvement of the upper limb. Twenty-nine per cent of the patients demonstrated flexion/abduction deformity of the hip while 52.6 per cent showed foot drop resulting from tibialis anterior paralysis. Of the children studied 3.9 per cent came from the upper social class while 96.1 per cent came from the lower social class.