Functional assessment of stretch hyperreflexia in children with cerebral palsy using treadmill perturbations.

The study included only children with Gross Motor Function Classification System levels I-II, so these findings do not apply to children with more severe mobility impairments. The protocol could only distinguish between groups of children, not individual patients, meaning it cannot yet be used to diagnose or monitor a specific child's spasticity. Three children with cerebral palsy dropped out due to fatigue, indicating the protocol may be too demanding for some children. The time window used to measure reflexes was long, so some of the recorded activity might have been voluntary rather than purely reflexive. The sample size was small, particularly for the group of children who had undergone SDR surgery, which was only three participants.

The study was funded by the Dutch Technology Foundation (Stichting voor de Technische Wetenschappen). No other conflicts of interest are reported in the provided text.

Do not interpret this as evidence that treadmill perturbation testing is ready for clinical use. The study showed the method works at a group level but could not reliably identify stretch hyperreflexia in individual children, and some children with cerebral palsy had responses similar to typically developing peers.