Effect of Vestibular Training with Regular Rehabilitation on the Overall Development of Children with Global Developmental Delay and Hypotonia: a Randomized Controlled Trial

BackgroundThe increase in the number of children with global developmental delay and hypotonia is a growing concern. However, clinical rehabilitation for these patients is often carried out using monotherapy approaches, and the period for achieving improvement is relatively long.ObjectiveTo observe the effect of vestibular training with regular rehabilitation on muscle tone and global developmental level in children with global developmental delay with hypotonia, providing evidence for improving treatment options for these children.MethodsSixty children with global developmental delay accompanied by hypotonia who received rehabilitation training in Department of Pediatric Rehabilitation, Rehabilitation Center, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine from April 2018 to January 2020 were selected, and equally randomized into a control group (regular rehabilitation) and an observation group (vestibular training with regular rehabilitation) . Both groups were treated once daily, 6 days per week, for consecutive 4 weeks. Changes in the normative percentages of Griffiths Mental Development Scales (GMDS) subscales and development quotient, and muscle tone grading of both groups were observed before and after treatment. The overall response rates of muscle tone improvement were compared between the groups.ResultsThe values of normative percentages of GMDS subscales and development quotient were similar in both groups at baseline (P>0.05) , but they were more higher in the observation group after intervention (P0.05) . The observation group had a much higher overall response rate of muscle tone improvement 〔86.7% (26/30) : 17 (56.7%) with significant responses, 9 (30.0%) with fair responses, 4 (13.3%) with no responses〕 than the control group〔56.7% (17/30) : 9 (30.0%) with significant responses, 8 (26.7%) with fair responses, 13 (43.3%) with no responses〕 (χ2=13.658, P