Therapeutic effects of functional electrical stimulation on motor cortex in children with spastic Cerebral Palsy

In the present study we have evaluated the electroencephalogram (EEG) signal recorded during ankle dorsal and plantar flexion in children with spastic Cerebral Palsy (CP) after Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) of the Tibialis Anterior (TA) muscles. The intervention group had 10 children with spastic diaplegic/hemiplegic CP within the age group of 5 to 14years of age who received both FES for 30 minutes and the conventional physiotherapy for 30 minutes a day, while the control group had 5 children who received only conventional physiotherapy for 60(30 + 30) minutes a day only. Both group weretreated for 5days a week, up to 12 weeks. The EEG data were analyzed for Peak Alpha Frequency (PAF), sensorimotor rhythm (SMR), muwave suppression and power spectral density (PSD) of all the bands. The results showed a decrease in SMRand mu wave suppression in the intervention group ascompared to the control group, indicating apositive/greater improvement in performance of motoractivities. Therefore, from this study we could concludethat FES combined with conventional physiotherapyimproves the motor activity in children with spastic CP.