Effect of Treadmill Training With Eyes Open and Closed on Knee Proprioception, Functional Balance and Mobility in Children With Spastic Diplegia

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of treadmill training with eyes open (TEO) and closed (TEC) on the knee joint position sense (JPS), functional balance and mobility in children with spastic diplegia. METHODS: Forty-five children with spastic diplegia aged 11–13 years participated in this study. They were randomly assigned to three groups of equal number. The control group (CON) underwent designed physical therapy program whereas, the study groups (TEO and TEC) underwent the same program, in addition to treadmill gait training with eyes open and closed, respectively. Outcome measures were the degree of knee joint position error, functional balance and mobility. Measurements were taken before and after 12 weeks of intervention. RESULTS: After training, the three groups showed statistically significant improvement in all measured outcomes, compared to the baseline with non-significant change in the knee JPS in the CON group. When comparing posttreatment results, the TEC group showed greater significant improvement in all measured outcomes, than the TEO and CON groups. CONCLUSION: Treadmill training with eyes open and closed is effective in rehabilitation of children with diplegia, but blocked vision treadmill training has more beneficial effect.