Three-dimensional motion analysis of upper extremity movements: a review of the differences in children with unilateral cerebral palsy and typically developing children

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Three-dimensional motion analysis has been used to quantitatively evaluate the components of upper extremity movements. The purpose of this review was to compare the results of upper extremity motion analysis of children with unilateral cerebral palsy and typically developing children during functional movements. METHODS: PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science and IEEE Xplore were searched using combinations of upper extremity/upper limb, cerebral palsy and motion analysis/kinematic. Eleven studies involving unimanual and bimanual tasks were reviewed. Results of the analysis of kinematic and spatiotemporal variables for shoulder, elbow, forearm, wrist and hand for the two groups were compared. RESULTS: Both kinematic and spatiotemporal differences for unimanual and bimanual tasks were found between the two groups of children for many movements. However, the kinematic differences varied as function of motion and task analyzed. The variability in motion analysis procedures, tasks performed, motions analyzed and reporting of motions impeded across study comparisons. The spatiotemporal results were more consistent. Typically, the movement took longer, the path was less straight and less smooth, and the peak velocity was lower for the cerebral palsy group than the typically developing group. DISCUSSION: Upper extremity three-dimensional motion analysis was able to determine kinematic and spatiotemporal differences between children with unilateral cerebral palsy and typically developing children during functional tasks. Standardization of motion analysis procedures, tasks, joint motions, and reporting of results are needed to facilitate between-participant, between-group and between-study comparisons for clinical and research applications.