BACKGROUND: The spastic hemiparetic gait pattern is characterized by temporal and spatial asymmetries, which are resistant features to correction. More information about the effect of new therapeutic modalities on the hemiparetic gait pattern should be investigated and obtained. AIM(S): The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of rhythmic auditory-cued gait training on spatiotemporal asymmetries of gait in hemiparetic children. METHOD(S): A randomized controlled study was conducted on 30 spastic hemiparetic children (15 boys and 15 girls) in the age range of 6 to 10 years. They were randomly allocated in two equal groups. The investigator performed two-dimensional gait analysis for every child before and after the treatment program to assess the gait symmetry. Gait Symmetry Index (SI) was applied to investigate the spatiotemporal gait symmetry. The study group received rhythmic auditory-cued gait training in addition to traditional physical therapy program training, whereas the control group received the traditional physical therapy program training, three times/week for 4 months. RESULT(S): There was a statistically significant decrease in SI of step length, stride length, stance time, and swing time posttreatment in the study and control groups compared with that pretreatment (p > 0.01). Furthermore, comparison between the study and control groups posttreatment revealed a significant decrease in SI of step length, stride length, stance time, and swing time of the study group compared with that of the control group (p > 0.01) which indicate improvement of symmetry. CONCLUSION(S): Gait training using rhythmic auditory feedback is superior to conventional physical therapy training for improving the gait symmetry of children with spastic hemiparesis.

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