Hip surveillance for children with cerebral palsy: Are the Australian standards the gold standard?

Abstract

Although surveillance for hip displacement in children with cerebral palsy (CP) was routine practice in Australia since 1997, these surveillance programs varied widely between states. This prompted efforts to convene a national working group to standardize a hip surveillance program for this population, culminating with the publication of the “Consensus Statement on Hip Surveillance for Children with Cerebral Palsy: Australian Standards of Care” [1]. These recommendations, comprehensively detailed in this edition of the journal, have been formally adopted since 2008. They aim to reduce the morbidity associated with hip displacement in CP by facilitating early detection and timely referral, which will presumably lead to early and more efficient or cost-effective management of hip displacement. (Child health) surveillance is the systematic and ongoing collection, analysis, and interpretation of indices of growth and development, which includes gathering data from screening tests (in this case clinical and radiologic tests) in order to identify, investigate, and, where appropriate, correct deviations from predetermined norms [2]. Hip surveillance, in essence, serves as a screening program aimed at identifying children who could potentially benefit from early intervention: in this case, a form of tertiary prevention to impede the