Table 2.
Maximum voluntary contractions for the 6 DOF. The left hand portion of the table presents the normalized MVIC data from this study. The right hand portion presents MVIC data from previous studies on children with CP expressed as a percentage of maximum voluntary contractions recorded from able-bodied children in the that study. Children with CP had decreased MVICs for all DOF except knee extension.
| NORMALIZED MVIC (Nm/kg) | NORMALIZED MAXIMUM VOLUNTARY CONTRACTION (% OF VALUE FOR ABLE-BODIED CHILDREN) |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOF | Able-bodied Children (n=20) |
Children w/ CP (n=6) |
p-value | Current Study |
Ross & Engsberg21 |
Damiano et al.7 |
Wiley & Damiano28 |
Thelen et al.26 |
Rose & McGill20 |
|
| PF | 2.18 ± 0.15 | 0.82 ± 0.20 | 0.000 | 38 | 40 | - | 39 | - | 48 | |
| DF | -0.81 ± 0.04 | -0.36 ± 0.10 | 0.000 | 44 | 56 | - | 41 | - | 26 | |
| KE | -0.67 ± 0.06 | -0.52 ± 0.18 | 0.281 | 78 | 55 | 63 | 63 | 43 | - | |
| KF | 0.71 ± 0.07 | 0.41 ± 0.13 | 0.045 | 58 | 56 | 38 | 68 | 51 | - | |
| HE | 2.51 ± 0.19 | 1.32 ± 0.21 | 0.003 | 53 | - | - | 44 | 59 | - | |
| HF | -1.66 ± 0.06 | -0.98 ± 0.18 | 0.013 | 59 | - | - | 57 | 76 | - | |
Data are mean ± standard error. MVICs are normalized to body mass (Nm/kg). Abbreviations are as follows: plantarflexion (PF), dorsiflexion (DF), knee extension (KE), knee flexion (KF), hip extension (HE), hip flexion (HF), maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC), and degrees-of-freedom (DOF).
p-values in bold indicate significant differences (p<0.05) between able-bodied children and children with CP.