Massage Therapy for Ankle Mobility and Spasticity in an Adult with Cerebral Palsy: A Case Report
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Cerebral palsy (CP) refers to a group of permanent neurologic disorders associated with injury to the brain during its development. The most common type of CP is spastic CP. Individuals with spastic CP commonly present with increased deep tendon reflexes, tremors, muscular hypertonicity, and weakness. Treatment aims to manage primary and secondary symptoms of CP and improve quality of life. Massage therapy has been shown to improve function and decrease spasticity in individuals with CP. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of massage therapy in increasing ankle mobility and decreasing spasticity in an adult with spastic CP. Method: A student massage therapist at MacEwan University administered five massage therapy treatments over 6 weeks on a 55-year-old female with spastic diplegic CP who presented with no active ankle movement and her ankles rigid in plantarflexion. The treatment goals were to obtain some ankle mobility and decrease spasticity in the knee extensors, which negatively impacted her ability to don socks and shoes. Progress was monitored using goniometry pre- and post-treatment to assess ankle mobility, and by administering the Modified Ashworth Scale prior to the third, fourth, fifth, and final sessions to assess spasticity. Techniques included static contact, effleurage, broad compressions, petrissage, muscle stripping, Golgi tendon organ release, muscle approximation, joint mobilizations, and passive range of motion. Results: Ankle mobility increased, and slight active ankle dorsiflexion and plan-tarflexion were possible. Spasticity in the knee extensors decreased, but the change was not clinically significant. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that massage therapy may improve ankle mobility and decrease spasticity in an adult with spastic CP.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".