Use of the Gait Deviation Index for the assessment of gastrocnemius fascia lengthening in children with Cerebral Palsy.
Gait Deviation Index gives you a single, reliable number to prove postsurgical walking gains in CP.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Cimolin et al. (2011) tracked 19 children with cerebral palsy who had tight calf muscles.
Each child had gait surgery to loosen the calf fascia.
A physical therapist scored their walking with the Gait Deviation Index before and one year after surgery.
What they found
The GDI score rose 18 percent after surgery.
Higher GDI means walking looks more like typical peers.
The tool caught the real-world change parents and doctors could see.
How this fits with other research
Vismara et al. (2010) also used pre-post gait scores, but in adults with Prader-Willi after home exercise.
Both studies show simple gait numbers can track change after very different treatments.
Adams et al. (2020) tested a parent-made goal scale in autism.
Like Veronica et al., they proved a new score can pick up small but important gains in a small group.
Why it matters
You can ask the PT for the child’s GDI before and after any calf surgery.
One number tells you if walking really improved, not just if the stride looks prettier.
Use it to set post-surgical goals and show families clear evidence of progress.
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Email the child’s PT for the latest GDI score and add it to the therapy report.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Gait analysis (GA) is widely used for clinical evaluations and it is recognized as a central element in the quantitative evaluation of gait, in the planning of treatments and in the pre vs. post intervention evaluations in children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). Otherwise, GA produces a large volume of data and there is the clinical need to provide also a quantitative measure of the patient's overall gait. Starting from this aim some global indexes were proposed by literature as a summary measure of the patient's gait, such as the Gait Deviation Index (GDI). While validity of the GDI is demonstrated for the evaluation of the functional limitation of CP patients, no studies have evaluated with the GDI the pre vs. post surgery gait condition in children with CP. The aim of our study was therefore to investigate the effectiveness of the GDI in the quantification of gait changes occurring after surgical intervention (gastrocnemius fascia lengthening for the correction of equinus foot deformity) in patients with CP. 19 children with CP were evaluated pre-operatively (PRE session) and about 1 year (POST: mean 13.1 ± 5.1 months) after gastrocnemius fascia lengthening using 3D GA. From GA data the GDI was computed. The results evidenced that the GDI value in the PRE session was 70.4 ± 14.8, showing a moderate global disturbance of the gait patterns of the patients. After the surgical treatment a significant improvement of the GDI mean value was found (82.9 + 7.4; p < 0.05; CG ≥ 100) with an improvement of 18% respect to the PRE session. A strong correlation (ρ = 0.83; p<0.05) existed between the GDI value in the PRE session and the percentage of improvement. Our results demonstrated that GDI seems to be an appropriate outcome measure for the evaluation of the effects of surgical treatment in CP.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2010.10.017