Functional independence in children with cerebral palsy (CP) varies with motor involvement and development. We describe two-year changes in Functional Independence Measure for Children (WeeFIM) scores among children with spastic hemiplegia, diplegia and tetraplegia receiving multidisciplinary rehabilitation. This single-centre prospective observational cohort included 100 programme completers aged 5–12 years at enrolment: 36 with hemiplegia, 31 with diplegia and 33 with tetraplegia. Rehabilitation comprised 40 courses over 24 months, with 384 reported therapy procedures and sessions lasting 45–60 min. WeeFIM was assessed before the programme and at 24 months. Subgroup means and standard deviations were summarized descriptively. Mean changes were calculated as follow-up minus baseline means, and subtype means were weighted by subgroup size. Mean WeeFIM total scores increased in all 12 subtype-by-age groups. Weighted mean scores increased from 79.2 to 108.5 in hemiplegia, 68.2 to 100.5 in diplegia and 18.1 to 29.3 in tetraplegia, corresponding to changes of 29.3, 32.3 and 11.2 points. Age-specific changes ranged from 25.2 to 31.9, 29.0 to 35.3 and 6.9 to 16.0 points, respectively. Younger children had higher follow-up means in hemiplegia and diplegia, but did not consistently show larger changes. In tetraplegia, changes were larger at ages 5–8 than 9–12 years. Domain-specific outcomes and individual clinical meaningfulness could not be determined. Mean functional independence increased during two years of multidisciplinary rehabilitation among programme completers. Changes differed descriptively by motor subtype and baseline age. The absence of a control group, selection of completers and unmeasured confounding prevent attribution of these changes to treatment. Controlled studies incorporating severity and domain-level outcomes are needed.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Sopromadze et al. (2026) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: