Improving dexterity in children with cerebral palsy

Abstract

We investigated the effectives of a glove-based virtual reality system (YouGrabber) on arm and hand function in 17 children and juveniles with cerebral palsy (CP). The intervention group (n=10) received 12 sessions of training, while the control group (n=7) performed computer games. Analyzed were grip strength and lateral-grip strength, the box-and-block test (BBT) and the nine-hole-peg test (9HPT) of the more affected hand. The BBT tended to improve more in the intervention compared to the control group (P = 0.07). Effect sizes of most measures were considerably larger in the intervention group. Our preliminary data suggest that children and juveniles with CP might profit from a 3 week training with the YouGrabber system to improve hand and arm function.