Measuring Upper Extremity Activity of Children With Unilateral Cerebral Palsy Using Wrist-Worn Accelerometers: A Pilot Study

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Wrist-worn accelerometry can provide objective information on real-world habitual activity with both arms in children. Accelerometers are nonintrusive, easy to use, and well tolerated by children, and they allow prolonged monitoring of UE activity outside therapeutic contexts. Occupational therapists can use wrist-worn accelerometers as sensitive tools to assess asymmetries in UE use at baseline and as an outcome measure to assess the efficacy of behavioral interventions and carryover into real-world settings among children with UCP. Plain-Language Summary: This pilot study provides promising evidence that supports the use of wrist-worn accelerometry as an accurate, easy-to-use, and objective assessment tool for children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP) to detect asymmetries in bilateral real-world arm activity at baseline and after intensive occupational therapy interventions to improve arm function. The authors used wrist-worn accelerometry for one week with 9 typically developing (TD) children and 9 children with UCP to compare dominant or unaffected versus nondominant or affected upper extremity (UE) use for intensity and duration of activity. Compared with TD children, children with UCP had lower relative intensity of activity in the nondominant UE than the dominant UE. Wrist-worn accelerometers seem to be a sensitive measure to detect asymmetries in bilateral all-day UE use in children with UCP. The findings have implications for the use o...
Source: The American Journal of Occupational Therapy - Category: Occupational Health Authors: Source Type: research