Dr. Tom Novacheck, of Gillette Children's, describes the characteristics of the 4 types of unilateral, otherwise known as hemiplegic gait, and how the use of clinical instrumented gait analysis can help with treatment decision making.
Dr. Tom Novacheck, Gillette Children's, describes what to look for in each of the 4 different gait patterns seen for those with bilateral cerebral palsy and considerations for each type.
Dr. Debbie Song, Gillette Children's, gives an overview of common neurosurgical procedures to address global tone in individuals with cerebral palsy.
It is important to understand how spasticity can impact the muscles and the know what treatments are available to help.
Understanding different gait patterns is important because it can determine what interventions will potentially be the most effective.
Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder that affects how clear and understandable a person’s speech is. Between 50-90% of people with CP have dysarthria.
Dyskinesia is an umbrella term encompassing a range of different movements. These are all movements that can be out of your control. Dyskinesia is very common in cerebral palsy.
Spastic cerebral palsy is the most common type of CP. People will experience increased muscle tone and their movements may appear stiff or awkward.
People who have dyskinetic cerebral palsy experience involuntary movements that are difficult to control. These movements can be slow, twisting and writhing, or rapid and jerky, and can impact movement in the hands, arms, feet, legs and even the face or tongue.
Pain in people with cerebral palsy is very common, and probably not evaluated frequently enough.
A lot of people with cerebral palsy will experience pain over the course of their life. Through better assessment we can provide better interventions, which will lead to a better quality of life.
The Cerebral Palsy Foundation has created a factsheet to help guide you in understanding and treating pain with CP. This fact sheet has been created for individuals with cerebral palsy to provide basic guidance surrounding common causes and potential treatment of pain.
Many people do not know the difference between SSI and SSDI. It can be very confusing for a family or individual to understand what is available, and whether they will qualify. Very often, the recipients and their families do not even know which benefits they are receiving. But it is important to understand some basic information about government benefits. This post will focus on the two most common government benefits and give you a brief overview of how they work.
In 2014 the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act was passed. The ABLE account is a tax-advantaged savings account for individuals with disabilities. The individual with the disability is the account owner and anyone can contribute to the account – the account beneficiary, family, friends, even a Special Needs Trust.
Drooling is an important problem for many individuals with CP and there are a number of interventions available to treat symptoms. If an individual with CP or their caregiver have concerns about drooling it is important to discuss with a health care provider. Care pathways such as the AACPDM pathway can be a starting point for shared decision making. In all cases, working together as a team is important in choosing the best alternative. Children and adults with CP may have trouble with drooling, or saliva management. In the medical world, drooling is referred to as sialorrhea. Saliva plays an important role in eating but also can interfere with airway clearance and breathing, as well as social participation. When drooling has this kind of impact it becomes important to consider intervention.
A person’s gait is dependent on the interaction between the nervous, musculoskeletal, and cardiorespiratory systems and has many influences.
An international study recently published in the journal Nature Genetics has provided the first firm evidence that for a substantial number of people, their cerebral palsy (CP) may be caused by a genetic mutation, or mis-spelling in the body’s DNA blueprint.
Cerebral palsy refers to a group of conditions that are caused by problems in brain development and that affect how movement and motor control happen in children. Problems with walking and talking are often the way people start a conversation about cerebral palsy.
As your child with CP is becoming a teenager, there are a couple of things you may want to think about.
It's important for all of us who are imposed with certain physical boundary conditions to push those boundary conditions as far as possible and maintain as much independence as absolutely possible.
Children with cerebral palsy have more complex self-management and self-care demands than children who are typically developing. They have to learn how to deal with medications and they may have to deal with medical equipment. At some point, they're going to have to learn about medical appointments.
As we all know, becoming a teenager means significant upheaval, not only physically, but in terms of friendships, in terms of learning, and life outlook. This is also true for adolescents with cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities. We know that whilst we may of spent a lot of time focusing on their physical abilities and other difficulties it is not the only part of their life.
There are so many different causes for potential pain that it can be hard to find the cause. If you have CP or are a parent of someone with CP it is really important to empower yourself with information on pain including what causes it and options for treatment. You need to work out what is causing the pain not just mask it with pain medication.