Living with CP taught Dr. Kathleen Friel much about educating others about her disability and now about her life threatening diagnosis of Metastatic Breast Cancer.
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.
When it comes to preparing your child for Botulinum Toxin injections, the first most important thing to remember is to know your child.
I'm going to be talking about AAC and reading and some different things that you might not think about when you are doing those types of activities. When you're supporting reading for a nonverbal child, whether they use a high-tech system or a light-tech system, like a paperboard, you want to make sure that they have plenty of the opportunities to contribute to the experience. You want to be able to comment. You want to be able to talk about the people, the places, the things, and maybe the feelings that they have.
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.