Relationship between dynamic deformities and joint moments in children with cerebral palsy

A relationship between dynamic flexion-extension motion ranges during walking and the magnitude of flexion and extension moments was analyzed for 38 ambulatory children with spastic cerebral palsy. Moments tending to flex the hip and the knee were more than a factor of two times greater than those occurring during normal gait. At the knee, the magnitude of the moments was related to the amount of flexion deformity, whereas at the hip there was no correlation between moment magnitude and extension motion range. The maximum dorsiflexion and plantarflexion ankle moments were of less than normal value in all deformity groupings. An understanding of the longterm influence of these abnormal moments on the terms of the progression or stabilization of the dynamic deformities during walking is an important step toward improving our understanding of and, potentially, our ability to treat patients with cerebral palsy.