Abdel-aziem A et al., International Journal of Therapies and Rehabilitation Research 2015; 4 (5): 236-243 International Journal of Therapies and Rehabilitation Research [E-ISSN: 2278-0343] http://www.scopemed.org/?jid=12 IJTRR 2015, 4: 5 I doi: 10.5455/ijtrr.00000094 Effect of Trunk Exercises on Trunk control, Balance and Mobility Function in Children with Hemiparetic Cerebral Palsy Heba M Youssr El-Basatiny 1,2 Amr Almaz Abdel-aziem 3 ARTICLE INFO ____________________________ Article History: Received: July 06, 2015 Accepted: Aug 04, 2015 Published: Sep 14, 2015 ____________________________ AUTHORS AFFILIATIONS 1 Department of Physical Therapy for Growth and Developmental Disorders in Children and its Surgery, Faculty of Physical Therapy, Cairo University, Egypt 2 Physical Therapy Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, University of Dammam, KSA 3 Department of Biomechanics, Faculty of Physical Therapy, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt ____________________________ Correspondence: Amr Almaz Abdel-aziem Email: amralmaz@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate the effect of trunk exercises in addition to conventional physiotherapy program on trunk control, balance and mobility function in children with hemiparetic cerebral palsy. Methods: Thirty spastic hemiparetic cerebral palsied children of both sexes (10-14 years, 16 girls and 14 boys) were included in this study. Children were randomly assigned into two equal groups: study and control groups. Both groups received a conventional physical therapy program. The study group additionally received trunk exercises which was provided 30 min/day, 3 days/week for 3 successive months. Participated children received baseline and post-treatment assessments using Trunk Impairment Scale (TIS), Berg Balance Scale (BBS) and dynamic gait index (DGI) to evaluate trunk control, balance and mobility function. Results: Both groups showed significant improvements in the mean values of all measured variables post-treatment with (p<0.05). The results also showed significantly better improvement in the scores of all measured parameters for the study group, as compared to the control group (p<0.05). Conclusion: Additional trunk exercises to conventional therapy had a beneficial effect in improving trunk control, balance and mobility function in children with spastic hemiparetic cerebral palsy. Key words: Cerebral palsy, trunk control, balance. Introduction Cerebral palsy (CP) describes a group of disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation (1,2). The extent of problems varies with the degree of disability, ranging from minor dysfunctions in the least impaired to limited motor control in the most impaired (3). Performing everyday activities requires a flexible control of posture, meaning that we continuingly have to control the position of either parts of the body or the whole body in an often changing environment (3). Postural control for stability and orientation requires a complex interaction of musculoskeletal and neural systems (4,5,6). The trunk plays a critical role in the organization of postural reactions (7). The primary contribution of the trunk muscles is to stabilize the Original Article Open Access