The nature of rehabilitation services provided to children with cerebral palsy: a population-based nationwide study

BACKGROUND: Cerebral palsy (CP) is a serious neurodevelopmental disorder that occurs in childhood and requires a range of treatments over a person’s lifetime. The aims of this study were to investigate the nature of the rehabilitation treatments provided to children with CP and to determine if there were any changes in patterns over time. METHODS: From 2003 to 2013, the nature of rehabilitation treatment was analyzed for children diagnosed with CP. In addition, the medical data of rehabilitation treatments over a 10-year period (from birth to nine years of age) were analyzed for children born in 2004 diagnosed with CP. Furthermore, we analyzed whether there was a difference in the costs of medical expenditures according to family income. All studies were based on data from the Korean National Health Information Database. RESULTS: It was found that, in recent years, rehabilitation therapy and spasticity treatment of children with CP have started being performed at a younger age than in the past. Among the children with CP born in 2004, 28.6% had physical therapy and 25.4% had occupational therapy on an inpatient basis; 81.3% had physical therapy and 62.2% had occupational therapy on an outpatient basis. Additionally, 22.2% of children received botulinum toxin injection therapy at least once. The numbers of children receiving rehabilitation therapy and botulinum toxin injection were highest at 1–5 years of age and 6–7 years of age, respectively. The expenditure on rehabilitation therapy was not affected by the economic level of the family. CONCLUSION: This study investigated the nature of rehabilitation services provided to children with CP. More recently, the treatment of children with CP has started to be performed earlier than in the past. In addition, it was confirmed that the nature of rehabilitation treatment for children with CP changed according to age. Based on these results, services and health policies may need to be better organized to enhance the benefits to children with CP.