ABSTRACT
Objective:To evaluate the clinical efficacy of hydrotherapy in the treatment of children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP).Methods:The China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang databases, CQVIP databases, PubMed and the Cochrane library were electronically searched for reports published before November 2018 of randomized and controlled trials (RCTs) of hydrotherapy for treating children with spastic CP. Two researchers screened the literature independently, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias in the included studies. The meta-analysis was performed using version 5.3 of the RevMan software.Results:A total of 6 RCTs were included, covering 464 patients. It was found that hydrotherapy combined with conventional rehabilitation was significantly more effective than conventional rehabilitation alone.Conclusions:It has been proved that hydrotherapy can improve the symptoms of children with spastic CP, relieve their spasticity and promote better motor function.