Examining the feasibility of exercise-related outcome measures for children with spastic cerebral palsy, who are propelling a manual wheelchair.

Children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) often have poor physical fitness
which may compromise their daily physical functioning. These poor
fitness-levels have been well-documented by means of exercise tests in children
and adolescents with CP who are able to walk independently. Moreover, exercise
testing has been used as a primary outcome measure of published therapy and
exercise programs with children with CP.
For children who use wheelchairs there is no reliable or valid exercise test
that uses the wheelchair during testing. Since specificity is an important
aspect in exercise-related training, further research is required to test the
psychometric properties of this aerobic and anaerobic exercise tests for
children who use wheelchairs.

To develop reliable and feasible aerobic and anaerobic exercise tests for
children with spastic CP who use wheelchairs.

Reliability study

In general, symptom-limited maximal exercise testing is safe for children, even
for those whose diagnoses place them in a high-risk group.Moreover, studies
using exercise protocols with children and adolescents with CP who are able to
walk, reported no adverse health or safety effects.Thus one can conclude that
in general, with the proper safety precautions maximal exercise testing for
children and adolescents with CP is suitable and safe.