This presentation from the 2023 AACPDM Community Forum presents and overview of the interactions between the types of Cerebral Palsy, Mental and Behavioral Health and various medications and strategies to treat challenging mental health disturbances.
Early diagnosis begins with a medical history and involves using neuroimaging, standardized neurological, and standardized motor assessments that indicate congruent abnormal findings indicative of cerebral palsy. Clinicians should understand the importance of prompt referral to diagnostic-specific early intervention to optimize infant motor and cognitive plasticity, prevent secondary complications, and enhance caregiver well-being.
If you or your child have cerebral palsy where the cause is unclear, there are no-cost genetic tests and no-cost genetic counseling that can help answer some of these questions.
CPF Executive Director Rachel Byrne and psychologist Gili Segall, PhD discuss mental health during these constantly changing times and how to create strategies to help everyone in the family thrive.
This study highlights caregiver knowledge and preferences to understanding the GMFCS and how that information should be relayed from clinicians.
The GMFCS, MACS and CFCS are all tools used by therapists and researchers to help classify the functional capabilities of individuals with CP. This research article provides evidence of their stability over time.
The GMFCS can be a helpful tool in clinical and research use and has been shown to be stable and accurate over time. It can also help individuals and families better understand cerebral palsy.
CPF Executive Director Rachel Byrne and Weinberg Cerebral Palsy Center social worker, Jan Moscowitz, discuss strategies for coping with anxiety and depression, especially during times of isolation.
Adults with Cerebral Palsy have unique care needs related to physiological changes that occurred with growth and development with Cerebral Palsy, including mental health, yet experience many barriers to proper care.
Sleep is important to all of us, but it's especially important for infants. When infants go to sleep, they start to create neural networks about what they've been learning during the day. It's estimated that as many as one in five children with disabilities have a sleep disorder, and that's higher than the rate of typically-developing children. Finding sleep interventions for these children is incredibly important so they can lay down their brain networks and continue to learn during their early childhood years.