Integrated Management in Cerebral Palsy: Musculoskeletal Surgery and Rehabilitation in Ambulatory Children
摘要
In this chapter, current treatment concepts for ambulatory children with cerebral palsy (CP) will be introduced and discussed. The Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) was the first of the family of classification systems, which have given clinicians a common language with which to communicate about cerebral palsy. Classification of sagittal gait patterns in bilateral spastic CP (BSCP) is also useful to guide integrated management, selection of target muscles for injection of botulinum toxin A, choice of ankle-foot orthoses and surgical procedures in single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS). In the SEMLS approach, the gait pattern is identified and evaluated by instrumented gait analysis (IGA) as part of the diagnostic matrix. A comprehensive plan is then developed for the correction of all muscle-tendon contractures, torsional malalignment and joint instabilities in one operative session. Rehabilitation requires at least 1 year, and improvements continue into the second year post-operatively. The term SEMLS has been refined to just multilevel surgery (MLS) in acknowledgement of the need for “fine-tuning” surgery in the years following MLS, usually prior to skeletal maturity.