Functional Elbow Range of Motion in Children and Adolescents

Background: The functional elbow range of motion in children and adolescents has not been previously reported. In adults, a functional motion arc of 30 to 130 degrees of elbow flexion and 50 degrees of pronation to 50 degrees of supination is well established. Contemporary tasks such as cellular phone use and keyboarding require greater elbow flexion and pronation than the functional motion arc. Whether or not this is true in children has yet to be established. We hypothesize that to perform functional and contemporary tasks, children and adolescents use a greater range of elbow motion and forearm rotation as compared with adults. Methods: Twenty-eight subjects performed 8 functional tasks and 4 contemporary tasks. Kinematic data were captured using a 3-dimensional motion analysis system as previously described. Mean and SD was collected for elbow flexion, extension, pronation, and supination. Unpaired t tests were performed to compare elbow kinematics of children 6- to 11-year-old (n=14) to that of adolescents 12- to 17-year-old (n=14), with a significance criterion of P-value
Source: Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics - Category: Orthopaedics Tags: Upper Extremity Source Type: research