Identification and assessment of body alignment in children with cerebral palsy

Introduction: Body alignment is the position of body segments in relation to one another and their orientation in space. Children with cerebral palsy (CP) present with disorders in posture and body alignment. These postural difficulties prompt the need for a child’s body alignment to be managed for them. Assessment of body alignment is important in evaluating therapeutic approaches and as an outcome measure of intervention. This research aimed to identify the clinical measures used by therapists to measure body alignment. It reports on the development, and psychometric evaluation of the Clinical Assessment of Body Alignment (CABA) as a measure of body alignment in children with CP. Method: The CABA was developed and psychometric testing was undertaken among children with CP by paediatric physiotherapists. Properties examined were content and construct validity, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability and responsiveness to immediate change. Results: The CABA demonstrated excellent levels of content validity, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability and responsiveness to changes in body alignment Conclusion: The CABA has been carefully and extensively developed and this preliminary analysis has shown it to have excellent validity, reliability and responsiveness properties.