Aim: To assess the effects of neurodevelopmental treatment for children with cerebral palsy.
Methods: We conducted a systematic review following the recommendations of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and reported in accordance to PRISMA Statement. Through a comprehensive literature search we considered all randomized clinical trials that compared neurodevelopmental treatment with conventional physical therapy for children with cerebral palsy. We used the Cochrane Risk of Bias Table to assess the risk of bias of the included randomized clinical trial, and the GRADE approach to evaluate the certainty of the body of the evidence.
Results: We found 3 randomized clinical trials (2 published and 1 ongoing) comprising 66 children. Published randomized clinical trials presented methodological and reporting limitations and only 1 provided data for outcomes of interest. No difference between neurodevelopmental treatment and conventional physical therapy was found for gross motor function (mean difference 1.40; 95% confidence interval -5.47 to 8.27, low certainty evidence).
Conclusion: This review found that the effects of neurodevelopmental treatment for children with cerebral palsy are still uncertain. Further studies are required to assess the efficacy and safety of neurodevelopmental treatment for this purpose and until there, current evidence do not support its routinely use in practice. Number of protocol registration in PROSPERO database: CRD42017082817 (available from https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=82817 ).
Keywords: Bobath; cerebral palsy; evidence-based medicine; neurodevelopmental treatment; review.