Remote Ischemic Conditioning and Spinal Reflex Modulation in Children With Cerebral Palsy
Effects of Remote Ischemic Conditioning (RIC) Combined With Balance Training on Spinal Reflex Modulation in Children With Cerebral Palsy
East Carolina University
16 participants
Jul 28, 2025
INTERVENTIONAL
Conditions
Summary
Remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) is a clinically feasible intervention involving brief, sublethal periods of ischemia followed by reperfusion that has been shown to enhance motor performance, strength, and balance when combined with training in healthy adults and individuals with neurological conditions. Although RIC is thought to influence neuroplasticity through neural, metabolic, and humoral pathways, its effects on spinal-level mechanisms remain poorly understood. Emerging evidence indicates that neuroplastic adaptations occur not only at the cortical level but also within the spinal cord. Moreover, altered spinal reflex excitability is associated with spasticity, balance impairments, and functional limitations in children with cerebral palsy (CP), yet the role of spinal reflex modulations in response to RIC and balance training remains under expplored in this population. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effects of RIC combined with balance training on spinal reflex modulation in children with CP.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria3
- Children diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP) between the ages 8-17 years
- Gross motor function classification system levels I-III
- Mainstream in school and has sufficient cognition to follow the experiment instructions
Exclusion Criteria8
- Children with other developmental disabilities such as autism and developmental coordination disorders
- Children with cognitive deficits such as inability to understand and follow commands, substantially lower performance at grade level in school, and/or communication problems
- Children with balance disorders such as vestibular disorders, posterior fossa tumor etc.
- Children with known cardiorespiratory dysfunctions
- Children with sickle cell disease
- Children who are receiving other adjunct therapies such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, or vagal nerve stimulation
- Presence of lower extremity condition, injury, or surgery within last three months which could compromise conditioning and training.
- Participants who are pregnant.
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Interventions
See descriptions under arm/group descriptions. RIC is delivered for 5 intervention visits. Visits 1 is the baseline assessment and training visit, and visits 2-4 are RIC plus training visits, Visit 5 is training and post assessment visit.
See descriptions under arm/group descriptions. Sham conditioning is delivered for 5 intervention visits. Visits 1 is the baseline assessment visit, visits 2-5 are training visits, and visit 5 is training and post assessment visit.
All participants will undergo training on a balance board, learning to hold the board level within the 5- degree horizontal range. Participants perform the balance task for 15, 30-second trials per day at visits 1-5.
Locations(1)
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NCT07390760