IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 3940: Potential of Vibroacoustic Therapy in Persons with Cerebral Palsy: An Advanced Narrative Review (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)

Vibroacoustic therapy (VAT) is a treatment method that uses sinusoidal low-frequency sound and music. The purpose of this narrative review is to describe the effects of VAT on motor function in people with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) according to study design as well as providing information about the age of the participants, measurement tools, and sound frequencies that were used. The systematic search strategy based on the first two steps of a standard evidence-based approach were used: (1) formulation of a search question and (2) structured documented search including assessment of the relevance of abstracts and full texts to the search question and inclusion criteria. Out of 823 results of the search in 13 scholarly databases and 2 grey literature sources, 7 papers were relevant. Most of the relevant studies in children and adults presented significant improvement of motor function. According to the study design, only five experimental studies and two randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies were available. In the discussion, findings of this review are compared to other related methods that use mechanical vibrations without music. The authors recommend continuing to research the effects of VAT on motor function and spasticity in adolescents and young adults with spastic CP.