The Effect of Physical Activity and Virtual Reality on Functional Balance in Spastic Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy

Balance is a vital element in children with cerebral palsy and it is important to choose effective exercise strategies to achieve it. In order to investigate the balance of children with cerebral palsy, physical activity and virtual reality intervention were used. The pre-test post-test design with control group and follow-up test on 15 children with spastic cerebral palsy (hemiplegia) (6-12 years) from Golha Special School in Shiraz was used. Samples were randomly divided into two experimental groups: physical activity (n = 5) with aerobic exercise program, balance skills, ball skills and virtual reality using Xbox kinetic system program (n = 5) and control group with no intervention exercises (n = 5). Experimental interventions were performed in experimental groups for 8 weeks, 3 sessions per week. In order to assess balance, Pediatric Balance Scale of children was used in pre-test (two weeks before and one day before intervention), post-test (one day after intervention) and post-test (4 weeks after the post-test). One-way ANCOVA and Bonferroni post hoc tests were used for statistical analysis and the significance level was considered 0.05 at 0.05. There was a statistically significant improvement in the balance of children in the experimental groups compared to the control and virtual reality superiority to the physical activity group. As a result, virtual reality, as a superior exercise intervention, is effective in improving the balance of children with cerebral palsy.