Effects of aerobic training on physical fitness and executive functions in children with cerebral palsy

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) may have difficulties in their daily life activities due to spasticity, involuntary movements, lack of fine motor control and postural instability, therefore these children may have less active lifestyle and their aerobic fitness, social participation and quality of life fair worse than their healthy peers. Cerebral lesions related to CP can lead to different types of cognitive impairments. Objective: In this study, we aimed to determine how aerobic training program will affect aerobic fitness and cognition in children with CP. Method: We applied a functional aerobic training program to 10 children with spastic CP whose ages ranged from 10 to 18. The program lasted for 12 weeks. Aerobic training program consisted of running, jumping, sprinting activities and playing an interactive video game. Before and after the training program, we measured their aerobic fitness levels using a cycle ergometer. We also evaluated their attention and executive functions with the Cancellation Test and Simon Test. Results: After a 12 week aerobic training program physical fitness levels of the participants increased significantly (VO2max; pretest:30,2±9,7 mL.kg-1.dk-1posttest:32,3±9,8 mL.kg-1.dk-1) ( P˂0,05). There were significant improvements in the Cancellation Test too. Number of overall correct marks increased and the number of skipped targets decreased significantly (correct marks; pretest:225,3±9,5, posttest:233,5±5,4) (skipped targets; pretest:14±9,5, posttest:6,7±5,6) (p=0,001). Conclusion: All these findings show us that at least 12 week aerobic training program may increase aerobic fitness levels and improve cognition in children with CP. Keywords: Cerebral palsy, aerobic training, cognition, attention, executive functions.