Effect of a Power Mobility Intervention on the Sleep Health of Toddlers with Cerebral Palsy

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

PURPOSE: Children with cerebral palsy (CP) experience higher rates of sleep disturbances. Power mobility may affect sleep health due to the cognitive activity associated with mobility. This study aims to establish proof-of-concept to examine the effect of a power mobility intervention on the sleep health of young children with CP. METHODS: Toddlers (12-36 months old) with CP completed a 12-week intervention and used the Explorer Mini. Caregivers reported the total number of days and the total duration in minutes of device use. Caregivers also evaluated changes in their child's sleep health. RESULTS: Spearman's correlations indicated moderate correlations between overall sleep score and Explorer Mini use. Mann-Whitney U tests indicated moderate effect sizes on Explorer Mini use between stable/worse sleep and better sleep groups. CONCLUSION: Future work should expand upon this study and examine whether an association exists between power mobility use and sleep health using fully powered statistical analyses.