Freya is a 6-year-old girl with ataxic cerebral palsy. She moved to California from Iowa last month and has been prescribed six months of physical therapy. Freya’s parents are concerned; she has been having difficulty going down the front stairs of their new home. As her physical therapist, do you have a standardized test that will measure her initial gross motor function? In six months, how will you determine whether Freya has made progress?
GMFM-66 Quick Facts:
- 5mo-16 years
- Cerebral palsy
- Test re-test reliability GMAE-scoring method: 0.9932
- Most sensitive to change in children 5 years and younger
- Motor growth curves link
My Gross Motor Function Measure User’s Manual is tattered. I could not work without the GMFM! Like all things that are well designed, the creators have taken a complex concept and made it logical and simple. The GMFM is an evaluative measure that assesses change in motor function over time in children with cerebral palsy. Freya is evaluated in January, receives PT 1x/week and then is retested in July to determine if she has made significant progress. In addition, Freya’s inability to reach across midline will not be overlooked while therapy is heavily focused on stair skills; the test covers all domains from lying and rolling up to running and jumping, with each skill being incrementally harder than the last (in the GMFM-66). Continue reading “How to Use the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM-66)”
spritelypt 