You are a paediatric registrar in a clinic. A mother comes in concerned about the shape of her 6-month-old infant’s head. She has previously been advised that counter-positioning and physiotherapy might help. She has heard from a friend about using helmets to correct the head shape. She wants to know if this therapy would benefit her child.

You wonder if there is any evidence for the use of helmet therapy in correcting positional plagiocephaly.

STRUCTURED CLINICAL QUESTION

In infants with positional plagiocephaly [patients] is helmet therapy [intervention] associated with improved skull shapes [outcome]?

SEARCH STRATEGY

Primary sources

Multiple databases using Dataquest and Proquest search engines were searched. “Positional Plagiocephaly” AND “Helmet” yielded 34 articles.

Secondary sources

A Cochrane Library search revealed no articles.

SEARCH OUTCOME

We found a systematic review entitled “Conservative interventions for positional plagiocephaly”.1 Seven papers were relevant to the search. Four of these were included in the systematic review, while the other three were subsequent …