From a clinical perspective, these results are of immense importance.
Previously, inferences about a spastic muscle's extensibility have been
made based on the assumption that changes in RoM would be reflective
of muscle length changes. This assumption is not intuitive, as increases
in RoM can be due to the extensibility of tendons and other passive
structures. Our results demonstrate that in a group of children with
spastic diplegic CP classified as GMFCS levels 1 or 2, passive stretching
at the ankle joint resulted in a significant and acutely sustained elongation
of the muscle. They thereby confirm the clinical assumption that acute
stretching might increase muscle length in children with CP. Therefore,
the present study is a useful and necessary prerequisite to examine the
effectiveness of long-term stretching as a clinical intervention to achieve
a sustained increase in muscle length in this group of children