Scoping Review of the Effectiveness of Mobility Task Training for Caregivers of Children

Objective(s): To evaluate the literature for evidence of the impact of caregiver training for mobility tasks on caregiver burden and motor performance of children.

Data Sources: The scoping review was completed with searching of the following databases: PubMed, CINAHL, ProQuest Health and Medical Complete, Scopus. Various combinations of the following search terms were used: caregiver, mobility, pediatric, training, physical therapy.

Study Selection: Inclusion criteria included documented training for a mobility task and publication in a peer-reviewed journal, studies without outcomes showing the effectiveness of the training were excluded. The authors screened articles, with final decisions made for those to be included with discussions and agreement. The authors reviewed a total of 1806 articles. Following the screening, fourteen full-text articles were reviewed with five articles chosen for inclusion: three randomized controlled trials, one quasi-experimental study and one cohort study.

Data Extraction: The studies varied with the diagnoses included and ages of the children. One study included caregivers of premature infants, most studies had age ranges between one and 16 years of age with diagnoses of obesity and cerebral palsy. Four of the studies had positive outcomes related to training, one study showed no difference in the outcome measures following training. The training in all studies had limited detail regarding parameters and methods.

Data Synthesis: Results of the studies showed improvement with activities such as walking and self-care. The varied details of studies made further analysis challenging.

Conclusions: There is initial evidence that caregiver training with functional mobility tasks improves motor performance of children, but results and methods were inconsistent among included studies. While the evidence supports improvement with activities such as walking and self-care, generalization is limited given the varied nature of the completed studies. Further work is warranted to determine the most effective training methods.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.