Surgery of the spastic hand in patients with child cerebral palsy

a prospective study was conducted among 32 spastic hemiplegic children aged 5-15. the patients were admitted in "frank país" international scientific orthopedic complex from september, 1997, to september 2000. all of them had a contracture on wrist flexion and the fingers of different degrees, according to zancolli’s classification. the patients were operated on taking into consideration the most accepted surgical criteria at present. the minimum follow-up was of 6 months and the maximum of 29 months. 71.9 % of the patients attained a good function with the applied treatment and only 2 patients had no functional improvement. the existence of speech and vision disorders did not influence on the results. the higher the intelligence quotient was, the better the obtained function was. the functional and aesthetic improvement of the hand of 29 patients was observed by their relatives. only aesthetic improvement was obtained in two patients, whereas only functional improvement was observed in one patient. in general, all the patients had some type of improvement.