An update to the current understanding and potential of stem cell therapies for CP.
Intervention to improve function for children and young people with cerebral palsy needs to include client-chosen goals and whole-task practice of goals. Clinicians should consider child/family preferences, age, and ability when selecting specific interventions.
Author summary on stakeholder perspectives of pediatric powered wheelchair standing devices.
Bimanual therapy, also referred to as intensive bimanual training, engages patients in active play or practice to improve the use and coordination of both hands. Bimanual therapy is different from similar unimanual therapies, like constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT), because it promotes simultaneous use of both hands.
This study highlights caregiver knowledge and preferences to understanding the GMFCS and how that information should be relayed from clinicians.
Early powered mobility has been shown to improve cognition in children with multiple, complex disabilities.
We got the diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy when Lelia was 18 months. I was really happy, as we didn’t know what was wrong with her before then. She had low tone. She couldn’t roll over. She couldn’t sit up. Of course she didn’t walk. The diagnosis gave it a name, something I could work with, and I became a kind of vigilante mother, determined to get the best care for my daughter.
Purpose of review: Cerebral palsy is the most common physical disability of childhood, but the rate is falling, and severity is lessening. We conducted a systematic overview of best available evidence (2012-2019), appraising evidence using GRADE and the Evidence Alert Traffic Light System and then aggregated the new findings with our previous 2013 findings. This article summarizes the best available evidence interventions for preventing and managing cerebral palsy in 2019.
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.
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.