Introduction:

Intensive physical therapy in orphan diseases is a method for the treatment of patients with different neurological disorders, especially neuromuscular and skeletal muscle dysfunction as a consequence of metabolic crisis suffered due to a neurodegenerative disease which has as a characteristic that the patients present a particular smell in the urine, similar to the maple syrup used as food.

Objective:

To describe the results obtained through the use of intensive physical therapy in patients with orphan diseases.

Case presentation:

Nine years old boy with secondary sequelae of the above mentioned neurodegenerative disease. The initial evaluation was made with the index of motor function called GMFM 88-66 used before and after each intervention. The treatment involves the development of a program based in the intensive physical therapy in 4 sessions during 4 weeks and 4 hours each day, without stops and with a total of 80 hours per each intervention.

Conclusions:

Intensive physical therapy in orphan diseases provides significant changes in comparison with the traditional physiotherapy. It combines different techniques focused in the physiologic base of the exercises; in the case of neurodegenerative diseases, it increased the chances of improvement in the sequelaes of the motor level, and it improved the gross motor function in the boy. In general terms, there is evidence of changes in the evolution of the patient and impact in the skeletal muscle system, in the neuromuscular dysfunction and improvement in the clinical and life quality. This technique can be used in other children with motor disruptions secondary to orphan or rare diseases.

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