Lessons learned from conducting a pragmatic, randomized, crossover trial on robot-assisted gait training in children with cerebral palsy (PeLoGAIT).

Purpose: To investigate the effectiveness of outpatient robot-assisted gait training (RAGT) in ambulatory children with spastic cerebral palsy.

Methods: Children were randomized to two different intervention sequences within a pragmatic crossover design. They performed five weeks of RAGT (3 sessions per week) and five weeks of usual care (UC).

Measurement of muscle stiffness using robotic assisted gait orthosis in children with cerebral palsy: a proof of concept.

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility and reliability of a novel stiffness assessment tool implemented in the driven gait orthosis Paediatric Lokomat; to investigate the influence of single robotic-assisted gait training (RAGT) on muscle stiffness in children with cerebral palsy (CP).

Methods: Ten children with spastic CP conducted a single standard RAGT session and stiffness was assessed before and after the RAGT. Nine of the ten subjects were tested twice on the same day to investigate test-retest reliability, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), standard error of measurement (SEM), coefficient of variation of the method error (CV(ME)) and resistive torques during passive leg movements (stiffness in Nm/°) were calculated.

Cervical myelomeningocele--follow-up of five patients.

Only a few series of patients with cervical myelomenigocele (cMMC) and cervical meningocele (cMC) have been published. Interventions as well as the neurologic, orthopaedic, urologic and intellectual outcomes were analysed in this retrospective description of five patients with cMMC and cMC diagnosed in the period 1984-1999. Four patients suffered from cMMC, one from cMC.

Spontaneous intracranial haemorrhage in children: aetiology, presentation and outcome.

We are aware of only few reports addressing spontaneous intracranial haemorrhage (SICH) in non-selected series of children. This is a retrospective analysis of clinical presentation and outcome in 34 children with SICH seen in the period 1990-2000 in our hospital. Traumatic, neonatal and subdural haemorrhages were excluded.