Gait patterns in hemiplegic children with Cerebral Palsy: Comparison of right and left hemiplegia

The aims of this study are to compare quantitatively the gait strategy of the right and left hemiplegic children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) using gait analysis. The gait strategy of 28 right hemiparetic CP (RHG) and 23 left hemiparetic CP (LHG) was compared using gait analysis (spatio-temporal and kinematic parameters) and considering the hemiplegic classification based on four gait strategies. Our results demonstrated that velocity was a significant parameter to differentiate RHG and LHG: all hemiplegic types revealed in fact that RHG walked with higher velocity than LHG. The ankle strategy displayed an increased number of differences between RHG and LHG from hemiplegia of Type I to Type III. In all the comparison, the LHG showed the less physiological gait pattern. As for knee kinematics, differences between right and left hemiplegic gait pattern were evidenced only in children with hemiplegia Type II: the LHG walked with a more flexed knee at initial contact, marked hyperextension in midstance and reduced knee flexion ability in the swing phase. The hip strategy was quite normal in both groups in hemiplegia Type I. In the other two types, LHG showed a limited extension ability in midstance in comparison to RHG. In conclusion, our data revealed that RHG and LHG were in general characterised by different gait patterns, evidencing a general a progression of involvement in the different types of hemiplegia; in particular in all the hemiplegic types the LHG patients revealed a more severe involvement than the RHG individuals and the differences were more evident at the distal joints, especially at the ankle joint.