The Body Profile Score : an assessment of whole body walking patterns in children with cerebral palsy

Abstract: Patients with cerebral palsy account for great upper extremities deviationswhile walking. However, the number of studies assessing their upper bodygait kinematics are rare and no studies have been conducted interested inthe whole body kinematics during walking. In this study, we created awhole body index, the Body Profile Score made of modified existing kinematicindexes assessing the gait pattern of children with cerebral palsy. TheBody Profile Score (BPS) is an average of combination of the Gait ProfileScore (GPS), a modified Trunk Profile Score (TPS), a modified Arm PostureScore (APS) and a also new index called Head Profile Score (HPS), basedon a similar calculation. Dierent versions of the BPS were tested on threegroups: a control group, a CP group before botulinum toxin A treatmentand a CP group after botulinum toxin A treatment. The results showed apoor level of linear correlations between the dierent BPS versions and theGait Profile Score, indicating that lower body indexes such as the GPS orGait Deviation Index (GDI) and full body index such as the BPS do not renderthe same information. The BPS is the first index proposing a full bodykinematic analysis and aims at showing that such an analysis is needed ingait assessment of spastic children in order to have a realistic overview ofthe pathological walking condition.