Understanding and managing healthcare and the healthcare system can be daunting for all of us. Attitudes of both providers and patients toward healthcare have experienced significant changes over the past few decades, shifting away from a focus on providers addressing problems as they arise, to more of a partnership and a shared decision-making process to maximize function, well-being, and reduce potential morbidities [1].

On this episode with Dr. Amy Bailes, we discuss the Gross Motor Functional Classification System (the GMFCS), the Gross Motor Functional Measure (the GMFM), and the corresponding motor curves. The GMFCS is an important classification system that is relatively easy to understand and it helps create a shared language and framework for understanding a person with CP’s physical function. This can be very helpful for patients, families and providers of all sorts, especially as it relates to both and acceptance and understanding of the diagnosis and family-centered shared decision making.

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.

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.

It is important to understand the brain injury for each individual person, because they can be really different. Where the injury is can give us important clues to what motor problems that individual will have. The time you have the biggest risk to having a stroke is as a baby, not as an adult so it is important to understand what may be happening in the infants brain.

Cerebral Palsy affects body movement, muscle control, muscle coordination, muscle tone, reflex, posture and balance. Depending on the part of the brain that is injured depends on how someone’s muscle tone will be effected. For people with spastic CP they have increased muscle tone because of the part of the brain that's injured. If causes very tight muscles which in turn effects the movement of the joints and of the limbs. For others who have dyskinetic CP they lose the ability to have voluntary control over their muscles, and they can have jerky and uncontrolled movement patterns.