Cerebral Palsy (CP) or Balaka Pakshagatha (BP) in children is a condition that affects
movement, posture and co-ordination, and is caused by damage to the brain before,
during or after birth. Most of the affected children suffer from motor activity dysfunctions
due to this condition and it becomes a common developmental disability problem. Sixty
patients in the age group of 6 months to 6 years of CP/BP were taken for the study
from the Pediatric Clinic of Ayurveda Teaching Hospital and Physiotherapy Unit of
Awissawella Base Hospital in Sri Lanka. The sample of sixty patients was divided into
two groups of 30 patients each. The test Group of 30 patients who had some progress
after two months of Ayurvedic outpatient department treatments were randomly selected
for Ayurvedic indoor treatments. Control Group of 30 patients was randomly selected
for Physiotherapy Treatments. Ayurvedic indoor treatment regimen was of three rounds
of treatments of 45 days with two-month-gap, including six months follow up. The efficacy
of each therapy was studied using GMFCS (1), and results were derived after subjecting
to statistical analysis. Both Ayurvedic and Physiotherapy treatments had significant
result of 'p' value at <0.05. In Ayurvedic, treatment 'p' value is 9.44 E-13 and in
the Physiotherapy treatment, it is 3.32 E-08. Ayurvedic treatment regimen and Physiotherapy
have the capacity to improve the gross motor functions of Balaka Pakshagatha patients.
However, Ayurvedic treatment regimen is highly effective than that of Physiotherapy
treatment in the management of Balaka Pakshagatha.
Reference: [1] Robert P, Peter R, et al. (1997) Dev Med Child Neurol, 39: 214–223.
