Study the Efficacy of an Ayurvedic Treatment Regimen on Cerebral Palsy

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.