Balance and muscle power of children with Charcot-Marie-Tooth

BACKGROUND:

In certain diseases, functional constraints establish a greater relationship withmuscle power than muscle strength. However, in hereditary peripheralpolyneuropathies, no such relationship was found in the literature.

OBJECTIVE:

In children with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT), to identify the impact of musclestrength and range of movement on the static/dynamic balance and standing longjump based on quantitative and functional variables.

METHOD:

The study analyzed 19 participants aged between 6 and 16 years, of both gendersand with clinical diagnoses of CMT of different subtypes. Anthropometric data,muscle strength of the lower limbs (hand-held dynamometer), ankle and knee rangeof movement, balance (Pediatric Balance Scale) and standing long jump distancewere obtained by standardized procedures. For the statistical analysis, Pearsonand Spearman correlation coefficients were used.

RESULTS:

There was a strong positive correlation between balance and the muscle strength ofthe right plantar flexors (r=0.61) and dorsiflexors (r=0.59) and a moderatecorrelation between balance and the muscle strength of inversion (r=0.41) andeversion of the right foot (r=0.44). For the long jump and range of movement,there was a weak positive correlation with right and left plantar flexion (r=0.20and r=0.12, respectively) and left popliteal angle (r=0.25), and a poor negativecorrelation with left dorsiflexion (r=-0.15).

CONCLUSIONS:

The data on the patients analyzed suggests that the maintenance of distal musclestrength favors performance during balance tasks, while limitations in the rangeof movement of the legs seem not to be enough to influence the performance of thehorizontal long jump.