Sensory symptoms across the lifespan in people with cerebral palsy

Abstract

Structured AbstractAIMTo estimate prevalence of sensory symptoms in people with cerebral palsy (CP) across the lifespan.METHODIn this cross-sectional study, the self-reported Sensory Processing Scale Inventory (SPS-I) was administered via REDCap between 2/1/22 and 8/15/22 to people with CP or their caregivers enrolled in the online MyCP Community Registry. We determined the association between SPS-I scores and age (Pearson correlation) and functional status as assessed using five validated functional classification systems for CP (ANOVA). We hypothesized that sensory symptoms would differ between younger and older individuals with CP.RESULTSOf 155 responses (28% response rate, age 1-76 years, 34% male), 97% reported at least one bothersome sensory symptom. Total sensory symptoms decreased with age (R2=0.12, p<0.0001), driven by decreases in hyposensitivity symptoms (R2=0.32, p<0.0001), primarily tactile hyposensitivity (R2=0.29, p<0.0001). Sensory symptoms increased with greater functional impairment across all functional domains (ANOVA, p<0.0001). However, the age-specific decrease in hypo-sensitivities was most pronounced in people with the greatest gross motor functional impairment (R2=0.70, p=0.0004).INTERPRETATIONOur findings suggest that hypo-sensitivity, primarily tactile sensitivity, decreases with age in people with CP. Future work should assess whether decreased hyposensitivity contributes to other age-related changes in CP like increased pain.What this paper addsIndividuals with CP exhibit both hyper- and hypo-sensitivity across all sensory modalitiesHyposensitivity decreases with age in people with CP, independent of GMFCS levelLess hyposensitivity correlates with greater functional ability in people with CPOf all sensory modalities, tactile hyposensitivity correlates most strongly with age.