Original Article © 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 719 Blackwell Science, LtdOxford, UKCCHDChild: Care, Health and Development0305-1862Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005 0 2005316719725Original ArticleFunc- tional status in children with cerebral palsyG. Erkin et al. Correspondence: Gulten Erkin, MD, Mektep Sokak, No: 16/3, 06600, Kurtulus, Ankara, Turkey E-mail: gultenerkin@yahoo.com Original Article The assessment of functional status in Turkish children with cerebral palsy (a preliminary study) G. Erkin,* C. Aybay,* M. Kurt,* I. Keles,† A. Cakci* and S. Ozel* *Ankara Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Education and Research Hospital, Ministry of Health, Ankara, and †Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Kirikkale University, Faculty of Medicine, Kirikkale, Turkey Accepted for publication 15 July 2005 Abstract Introduction Cerebral palsy (CP) is one of the most common causes of disability in childhood leading to functional limitations. Assessment of the functional limitations is important to determine the severity of the disability in CP and to evaluate the benefit of the rehabilitation programme. However, the results of the measurements show variations according to different sociocultural characteristics. The Functional Independence Measure of Children (WeeFIM) had not been studied in Turkish children previously. The aims of this study were to evaluate the functional disability of Turkish children with CP by using WeeFIM and to compare the results with those of healthy counterparts. Methods A total of 86 children aged 24 months to 120 months were included in the study. Forty- five children with CP and 41 healthy children representing the controls were evaluated with WeeFIM. Both children with CP and healthy controls were categorized into four groups according to their chronological age. The variations in the WeeFIM subsets scores (self-care, sphincter control, transfers and locomotion, communication and social cognition) and total WeeFIM scores in children with CP and healthy controls were analysed. Results The children with CP had lower WeeFIM scores than healthy controls. The sphincter control subset scores of children with CP increased as they grew up. There was no statistically significant difference in all WeeFIM subset scores and the total WeeFIM scores among the four age groups of children with CP. Conclusion The WeeFIM appears to be a useful instrument for measuring the disability of Turkish children with CP. However, studies with wider series are needed to generalize our results. Keywords activities of daily living, cerebral palsy, disability, paediatric measurement, rehabilitation, WeeFIM Introduction Cerebral palsy (CP), as a consequence of non- progressive injury to the immature brain (Stemp- ien & Gaebler-Spira 2000), causes significant limitations in the activities of daily living (ADL) in children of all ages. Measuring the functional inde- pendence is particularly important in designing a rehabilitation programme, and in assessing the outcome. However, there are only a few evaluation methods to measure the functional independence of children with disability. It is a known fact that self-care skills, motor functions, and communi- cation and social cognition of these children obviously vary depending on age, environmental factors and the sociocultural and economic status