Tratamiento combinado aplicado en parálisis cerebral infantil. Presentación de un caso
Patricia Sanz-Terrades¹, Gemma V. Espí-López², M. Luz Sánchez-Sánchez², M. Arántzazu Ruescas-Nicolau², José Luis Romero-Ávila^3
1 Fisioterapeuta. Departamento de Fisioterapia. Universidad de Valencia, España
² Departamento de Fisioterapia. Grupo de Investigación Fisioterapia Prevención y Promoción de la Salud (FIPPS), Unidad Docente de Investigación en Fisioterapia, Departamento de Fisioterapia de la Universidad de Valencia, España.
³ Licenciado en Educación física. Fisioterapeuta. Departamento de Fisioterapia. Universidad de Valencia, España

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Background and Purpose. For people suffering from a lifelong disability such as cerebral palsy (CP),  establishing an appropriate physiotherapy treatment is of great concern. The aim was to study the effect on gross motor skills of the application of a combined physical therapy.

Case description. A case report of a 12-year-old female patient with a diagnosis of spastic tetraparesis after CP, who also showed a cognitive function disorder, is reported.

Intervention. A combined physical therapy treatment was applied during 35 weeks. The protocol consisted of stretching, training of muscle resistance, balance, reeducation of gait in partial suspension and myofascial therapy. Baseline and post-intervention assessments were carried out by means of the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM).

Results and discussion: A clinical improvement was observed in those dimensions of the GMFM which were lower rated at baseline. The dimension ‘standing’ (from 17,95% pre-intervention to 28,21% post-intervention) and the dimension ‘walking, running and jumping’ (from 5,56% pre-intervention to 19,44% post-intervention). Though the proposed physiotherapy techniques have been shown to be useful separately, when combined, it was observed that the gross motor function clinically improved in our patient.