Gait Training for Walking Acquisition in a Child with Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia: A Case Report.

PURPOSE: We report the effectiveness of task-specific walking training for a child with hereditary spastic paraplegia using various orthoses, assistive mobility aids, and tasks.

SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS: A 4-year-8-month-old boy, classified as Gross Motor Function Classification System level IV, had selective dorsal rhizotomy and single-event multilevel surgery. The child began walking training using knee-ankle-foot orthoses and a posterior walker, setting the tasks to be "just right" for improving the child's abilities.

CONCLUSION

At 6 years and 11 months of age, the child walked using bilateral ankle-foot orthoses and crutches at school, and scores improved on the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure, Gross Motor Function Measure-66, and Functional Mobility Scale.Recommendations for Clinical Practice: Physical therapists need to carefully select the factors involved in walking training based on an assessment and the difficulty level of each child in order to optimize improvements.