A Comparative Study on the Effectiveness of Modified Constraint Induced Movement Therapy (MCIMT) and Hand-Arm Bimanual Intensive Therapy (HABIT) on Improving Gross Manual Dexterity for Spontaneous use of affected Right Upper Extremity in Right Spastic Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy Children

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: Recent neuro-rehabilitation concepts have emphasized what children do in their actual environment rather than what they do in a standardized environment. Newly developed activity based interventions including Modified constraint induced movement therapy (MCIMT) and Hand arm bimanual intensive therapy (HABIT) provide evidence for the improvement of hand functioning. The purpose of this study is to provide additional research evidence. This research project intended to compare the effectiveness of MCIMT and HABIT on clinical outcome measures for children with right spastic hemiplegic cerebral palsy on improving gross manual dexterity. METHODOLOGY: 15 children with right spastic hemiplegic cerebral palsy were treated with MCIMT and 15 children with right spastic hemiplegic cerebral palsy were treated with HABIT. Interventions lasted for 3 months. BOX AND BLOCK test was used to assess gross manual dexterity before and after intervention. RESULTS: Statistically there is no significant improvement but clinically the treatments can be incorporated into practice. So the null hypothesis is accepted as the independent ‘t’ test post values table value (2.045) is greater than the calculated value (t value is 2). CONCLUSION: Children treated with HABIT recovered to the same extent as children treated with MICMT