As spring approaches, millions of high school seniors get one step closer to their career and to becoming the person they have dreamed about growing into since they were children. Receiving college acceptance letters is one of the most profound experiences in a young adult’s life. Moving out of your childhood home and stepping into the real world is a majorly exhilarating life event.
Setting up a comfortable home office is key to optimizing work/life balance.
This systematic review looks at all available evidence for pharmacological/neurosurgical interventions for managing dystonia in individuals with cerebral palsy to inform the AACPDM care pathway.
Welcome to the second part of my travel series! In the previous post, I wrote about how I found my love for traveling through my trip to Madrid and Paris. Looking back, not only do I realize that these trips took place during very different phases of my adult life, but they also mark the different phases of my CP in recent years. Although CP is the result of a non-progressive brain injury, many folks experience a decline in their physical abilities in their adult years — the inevitable effect of aging, not just for those with disabilities, but for everyone.
In the next couple of blog posts, I’ll write about some of my favorite trips that I took over the years. I’ll travel down memory lane of all the new places I explored in recent years and eagerly wait until my next trip.
My cousin, Reeva, had recently moved to Kyoto, Japan to learn Japanese for a year, and she convinced me to visit her there. I didn’t know anyone else living in Japan and Reeva was going to be there short term, so I couldn’t possibly pass up going! I was admittedly pretty nervous about traveling all the way across the world— a 24-hour long plane trip, including a layover— especially to a country that uses a language that isn’t remotely like anything I was used to. But, again, I wasn’t going to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Though the initial insult or injury to the brain that causes cerebral palsy is non-progressive, aging with cerebral palsy and lack of physical activity during critical periods of development can impact biologic and metabolic function for adults with cerebral palsy.
Mental health care should be included at the outset, as part of discussions around physical, occupational, and speech therapies. I’ve seen studies on cerebral palsy’s effect on caregiver mental health — and that is important. Caregivers are part of the cerebral palsy community, too. It’s an interdependent one. There’s not enough about the nuance around how having cerebral palsy affects mental health.”
There are multiple factors that impact bone health, including birth weight, nutrition, medications for seizures and/or reflux, genetics, and physical activity. Targeted exercise to improve bone health in childhood can be sustained into adulthood, and childhood is the best time to promote bone health.
I suppose there has to be one silver lining that comes out of being sheltered in place for months on end (due to Covid-19): I’ve finally been catching up on sleep. The recommended nightly hours of sleep is between 7 and 9 hours . For me, getting a good night’s sleep has been the best way to regain a sense of control and ease during such unnerving times. Not only does sleep improve mood and
As an undergraduate student in a major metropolitan city like NYC, the thought of finding a place to live after graduation was very daunting. I didn’t have many options for accessible dorms on campus, so I could only wonder how much more difficult it’d be to find a “real-life adult” apartment that I could afford as a 20-something-year-old. My apartment search began one year earlier than
The historic Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H.W. Bush — marking this month its 30th anniversary. The ADA was the country’s first-ever comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities, offering protection against discrimination and imposing accessibility requirements in workplaces and the public. The passage of this law was
As cities and states across the countries are lifting the COVID-19 lockdown orders, people are returning to work at their offices. However, since the virus is still very much going around, employers must be vigilant about keeping their workplaces as safe as possible. Although we might be seeing a sense of “normalcy,” there’s still a long way to go before reaching the pre-pandemic normalcy—if we
A year ago, I wrote in my Forbes column about the decades-long pattern of Pride Month celebrations excluding people with disabilities. The underlying reason why Pride events were (and still are) mostly inaccessible for people with disabilities, both in terms of physical spaces and social acceptance, is that mainstream media and public don’t see them having identities outside of their disabilities.
On International Women’s Day, We Celebrate These Trailblazing Women with CP
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.
When it comes to preparing your child for Botulinum Toxin injections, the first most important thing to remember is to know your child.
Cerebral palsy is caused by damage to the infant brain. This damage can involve not only the motor parts of the brain, but also the parts that deal with vision. This is not related to damage to the eye but is related to damage of the parts of the brain that process visual information.
As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to sweep through the country, there are increasing orders from local governments for residents to stay at home, unless they’re essential workers. Both professionals and students are relying on Zoom and other video conferencing software to work or learn from the comforts of their home, although such measures, in most cases, were not permitted before the pandemic.
As 20% of women with CP surveyed experienced pregnancy, there is a need to increase awareness, education, support, and advocacy for achievement of optimal reproductive health.
This fact sheet has been created for women with cerebral palsy to provide answers to some common questions about CP, pregnancy, and birth. Women with CP should follow general guidelines about getting healthy before getting pregnant, but women with CP may need to do other things as well to prepare for pregnancy.
It would be an understatement to say that the last few weeks have been unprecedentedly difficult. Some of you might feel hopeless, some fearful, and some defeated. However, it’s times like this that we must muster up our strength and forge forward.
Saturdays were special as a kid growing up in Port Washington, New York. Saturdays meant Burger King outings with my grandparents, a great big slice of trade-marked Hershey’s chocolate pie for me and piping hot oatmeal for them. And we can’t forget about the Kids Meal toys. But on this particular Saturday, everything was different - at the tender age of five, I started to notice that certain aspects of my life were just off.