INTRODUCTION: Infantile asymmetry is one part on daily work of a physiotherapist specialised on therapy with young children. There are different treatment options and actually above all a controversy about cranial orthotic device. What is about the efficacy of these treatment options? This review wants to describe the effect of the conservative treatment options of infantile asymmetry. METHOD: For literature search in PubMed (Medline), PEDro and Cochrane free keywords and meSH-terms were used. The included studies were described by study characteristics and the methodological quality. RESULTS: 18 treatment studies met the inclusion criteria. Six of these papers were comparative studies, which showed that molding therapy had a better outcome than repositioning therapy. Almost all in form of case series another 10 reported the positive results of cranial orthoses. Two randomised controlled trials about physiotherapy and osteopathy referred positive effects on infantile asymmetry. CONCLUSION: The results of the review show the positive effects of cranial orthoses, also in comparison with counterpositioning. Inadequate methodological quality and potential bias of these studies may not allow definitive conclusions about the efficacy of cranial orthoses. Regarding physiotherapeutic and osteopathic treatment there are first references for efficacy.

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