Rhythm and Multisensoriality's Effects on the Motor Development in Children With Cerebral Palsy (APP-PaC)

Toulouse University Hospital

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Cerebral Palsy

Treatments: Other: luminous stimuli

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03440749

RC31/17/0158

2017-A01969-44 (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Cerebral palsy (CP) affects the motor function but also the cognitive function of the child. Physical activity brings motor and cognitive benefits and appears as an important aspect of the therapy that is offered to them.

The child is seating in front of a computer, seating comfortably on a chair during 1 hour. The experimental task consists in learning a sequence of taps on "Serial reaction time task" type buzzers (SRTT) in which the child must press a buzzer corresponding to one of the 4 squares that on the screen. The sequence corresponds to 10 steps in a particular order.

Full description

Cerebral palsy (CP) affects the motor function but also the cognitive function of the child. Physical activity brings motor and cognitive benefits and appears as an important aspect of the therapy that is offered to them. In particular, the learning of movements in the presence of multisensory rhythmic information seems to have beneficial effects at the cognitive and motor level. The present study aims to test the respective effects of rhythm and multisensoriality on motor learning in children with cerebral palsy.

The motor learning task is known as the "Serial Reaction Time Task" (SRTT). It consists in repeating a sequence of movements of the upper limbs using visual-spatial information alone (V). It will test the addition of synchronous auditory stimulation to visual information or rhythmic auditory stimulation(VAR), to contrast with a control condition with non-rhythmic auditory stimulation (VANR). The performance of the children will be measured by the reaction time (RT), its stability and the number of errors made throughout the motor learning.

The child is placed in front of a screen on which 4 luminous stimuli are presented on a horizontal plane. Four buzzers are placed in front of him, each buzzer corresponds to the position of a stimulus. The stimuli light up in a predetermined sequence (10 positions) and the child must press the buzzer corresponding to the position of the stimulus that comes on. Four blocks of 5 sequences are repeated to test the general learning (B1 to B4) and then a block of random stimuli is presented to test the specific learning of the sequence (B5).

Enrollment: 60 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 6 to 14 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

For all children:

• Age between 6 and 14 years
• Obtaining the informed consent of the person possessing parental authority for all children

For children with Cerebral Palsy:

• Diagnosis of spastic cerebral palsy of levels GMFCS I to IV
• Ability to press buzzers with the palm of the hand, Manual Ability Classification System (MASC) I to IV
• Ability to understand instructions ("tap a buzzer along with a picture or sound") (investigator's appreciation)

For control children: no pathology diagnosed

Exclusion criteria

For all children:

• Children with a characteristic psychiatric pathology.
• Disorders of the understanding
• Hearing deficiency
• Uncorrected visual impairment

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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60 participants in 2 patient groups

Children with Cerebral Palsy (PC)

Experimental group

Description:

Serial reaction time task: repeating a sequence of movements according to the luminous stimuli

Treatment:

Other: luminous stimuli

Control Group

Active Comparator group

Description:

Serial reaction time task: of movements according to the luminous stimuli

Treatment:

Other: luminous stimuli