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.
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.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has updated its recommendations for Primary Care Providers to provide a "Medical Home" for children and youth with cerebral palsy. This comprehensive update gives primary care pediatricians the guidance they need to address the many needs that children and youth with CP experience and coordinate care across disciplines. The Cerebral Palsy Foundation has created a checklist to help guide you in raising your child with CP to living the healthiest life possible and ensure that you and your pediatrician are addressing all of your concerns.
Complex Rehabilitation Technology serves to enhance the lives of individuals who utilize it with the goals of maximizing health, wellbeing, participation and independence.
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.
The Cerebral Palsy Foundation has created a checklist to help guide you in living the healthiest life possible. This checklist has been created for adults with cerebral palsy to provide basic guidance surrounding routine and additional screenings that should occur as part of your primary and preventive care.
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.
Many children with cerebral palsy (CP) have difficulty controlling saliva. Drooling varies in severity and can be distressing for the children, families and caregivers. Chronic drooling is referred to as Sialorrhea and occurs as a result of limitations in a person’s ability to control and swallow oral secretions.
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.
For women with Cerebral Palsy, self-advocacy is probably the most important part, but it's also probably the hardest part because most of those doctors have not encountered women with disabilities. You really have to tell them what you need and tell them what to expect.
When scheduling and preparing for an OB/GYN appointment, women with Cerebral Palsy have additional challenges to consider and address when both scheduling the appointment and once they go their appointment.
It is recommended that women start having mammography screenings starting at about the age of 40, and it becomes more difficult to obtain these services if you have a disability.
Cerebral Palsy can be described by the way it affects movement and motor function, the part of the body affected and by how severe the impact is.
For some the day-to-day problems faced by children and adults with cerebral palsy, and their carers, are not motor ones alone. It is important that you discuss other areas of your child's development if you have concerns.
When first meeting a parent who's had a child newly diagnosed with cerebral palsy, I really want to try and help them understand their baby. It can be difficult for parents to take it in all at once and many leave that first interview quite overwhelmed, but you're going to meet some really important and helpful people.
A speech language pathologist is someone who is trained in working with kids and adults. Everything from working with articulation errors and correcting things to what I do, which is working with people with profound physical impairments and getting them augmentative communication strategies.
It has been scientifically proven that enriched environment can help children with CP gain new skills in their movement but also their thinking and communication skills.
There are some medical conditions or events that can happen during pregnancy, delivery, or shortly thereafter that may increase a baby's risk of being born with cerebral palsy.
Diagnosing cerebral palsy (CP) at an early age is important for the long-term outcome of children and their families.
A child may need one or several different types of treatment depending on how severe the symptoms are and what parts of the body are affected. Early intervention and treatment may help to improve function for the nervous system and musculoskeletal system.