Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: MILENA VELAME DEITOS

EFFECTS OF EXERGAMING ON GAIT AND THE RISK OF FALLS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER (ASD): PILOT STUDY OF A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED CLINICAL TRIAL

Autism Spectrum Disorder, Gait, Accidental Falls, Exergaming, Physical Therapy Modalities.

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized as a neurodevelopmental
disease, that has motor symptoms, that can predispose to falls and altered gait. The exercise
through exergaming showed good results in children with ASD, but there was not found studies
that evaluated the effects of the exergaming in gait and risk of falls. Objective: To evaluate the
effects of exergaming in motor performance in gait and risk of falls in children with ASD.
Methods: Pilot study of a clinical trial. There will be assessed 22 participants, diagnosed with
ASD, level I or II, aged 5 to 9 years old, that do not use medicine support that interfere in
postural balance and falls, without physical therapy treatment for at least 2 months. They will
be divided in Exergaming Group (EG, n=11) and Control Group (CG, n=11). The CG will
receive orientations through a booklet. The EG will be under the treatment with exergaming for
3 months, with 2 sessions per week, with 45 minutes of duration each (10 min initial, 25-30 of
exergaming with console Xbox360 with Kinect sensor, using the games of the “Kinect
Adventures!”, final 5 min of cooldown). They will be assessed through the following: CARS-
BR (Childhood Autism Rating Scale – Brazilian version), DCDQ (Developmental Coordination
Disorder Questionnaire), PBS (Pediatric Balance Scale), semi-structured questionnaire to
evaluate history of falls, filling in the diary of falls and gait evaluation through Gait Laboratory.
The analysis will be descriptive and the continuous variables will be summarized in mean and
standard deviation, and the categorical variables, in absolute and relative frequencies. To
compare independent and paired variables will be used parametric tests and will be considered
level of significance of 5% (p <0,05). Expected results: We expect that the children in EG will
have better results than those in CG in gait Variable and risk of falls, with clinical and statistical
significance.