In cerebral palsy (CP) muscles are often shortened so much that they restrict joint range of motion and the muscles themselves are weak. Thus, ‘shortness’ and ‘weakness’ are two important needs that clinicians must address.
The GMFCS can be a helpful tool in clinical and research use and has been shown to be stable and accurate over time. It can also help individuals and families better understand cerebral palsy.
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.
One of the things that was identified through research is that patients with cerebral palsy have higher rates of depression and anxiety than you would see in the general population.
The future of science advancements is endless. In this video Dr. Ted Conway discusses the possibility of thought to speech. One of the really interesting areas of research in biomedical engineering is thought to speech. The concept of thought to speech is fairly straightforward, the execution to make this a reality is a little more complicated.
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.