Jandara De Moura Souza’s research while affiliated with Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre and other places

Objetivo: Analisar a relação entre qualidade de vida (QV) e sobrecarga dos cuidadores relacionados ao grau de comprometimento neuromotor de crianças com paralisia cerebral (PC). Métodos: Estudo transversal realizado em 2014, com 38 cuidadores de crianças com paralisia cerebral atendidas pelo serviço de Fisiatria e Reabilitação do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Utilizaram-se os instrumentos World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionaire (WHOQOL – BREF), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Inventário de Ansiedade Traço-Estado (IDATE) e Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview (ZCBI). Avaliou-se o grau de desenvolvimento motor das crianças pelo Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS). Avaliaram-se as associações (coeficiente de Pearson) entre as variáveis descritas por média e desvio padrão, ou mediana, e amplitude interquartílica. Resultados: Encontraram-se 20 cuidadores (52,6%) com sobrecarga moderada. Encontraram-se associações no domínio social da WHOQOL-BREF em relação ao desenvolvimento motor das crianças (rs=0,355; p=0,029) e associação positiva entre a ZCBI e os escores do IDATE (rs=0,540; p

The authors aimed to investigate the effects of an intervention based on interactive game set with the movement sensor Kinect on children with cerebral palsy (CP). Twenty-eight participants were recruited. Their age was between 3 and 12 years old, and rated as level I, II, or III on the Gross Motor Function Classification System. They played two games from the Xbox 360 Kinect system and were evaluated using the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM) after a period of 8 weeks. The intervention led to significant motor function improvement as increase of the global scores on the GMFM (p < .001). Rehabilitation interventions using the Xbox 360 Kinect interactive games may represent useful tools for children with CP.

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a non-progressive encephalopathy that causes changes in muscle tone, posture and movement. The importance of early rehabilitation intervention is widely recognized, and new treatment tools such as computational technologies have been added for rehabilitation. The use of computational virtual reality games raises the possibility to control the training intensity as well as to observe the progress and direct monitoring control over patients' activities. Additionally, some studies have shown the effectiveness of these systems in improving the management of tasks for patients with various levels of encephalopathy. Based on the assumptions above, the objective of this review was to discuss the literature on the use of such technologies in the rehabilitation of CP patients. The potential use of VR in rehabilitation of CP patients is clear. There is, however, a reduced number of randomized trials to sustain whether these methods may effectively act as a complement for physical and/or neuro-cognitive rehabilitation or work as a replacement for the traditional rehabilitation methods.