The 2023 Health Summit will share new pathways for translating knowledge into practice for the Implementation of early detection and intervention for cerebral palsy from the best researchers and clinicians in the field.
This study tested the safety and effectiveness of a neuroscience-based, multi-component intervention designed to improve motor skills and sensory processing of the more-affected arm and hand in infants with CP where one side is more impacted than the other (asymmetric CP).
Dr. Nathalie Maitre discusses the CPF Early Detection and Intervention Network and helps us to understand how babies learn, how CP impacts the developing brain, and early intervention strategies that can help.
CPF Executive Director Rachel Byrne and Christina Smallwood talk about parenting, raising a child with cerebral palsy and helping her learn to advocate for herself.
CPF Executive Director Rachel Byrne and Dr. Mary Lauren Neel, MD discuss Life after the NICU.
My boys were exactly the same amazing, lovable, adorable, brilliant little boys after the diagnosis, that they had been before it. The exact same.
Neuroplasticity is the ability that the brain has to form new connections between different cells or between different areas of the brain.
The typical cognitive assessments that are used for children require them to be able to use their hands to point to pictures or hold puzzle pieces.
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 a parent, when it comes to different types of interventions for infants with cerebral palsy, how do you know what you have, what you don't, and what you could get?
Exploration for an infant means discovering anything about that environment. If that infant needs an opportunity to be brought to them, that's okay. Let an infant explore through their senses, whether it's touch, or smell, or taste, or sight, or hearing.
Cerebral palsy is an injury to the brain, but what we find is that it has a lot of effects on how you use your muscles.
"Cerebral palsy is primarily a motor impairment so it's really important to look at what the child’s motor function is. Are they developing on the trajectory of a child who has cerebral palsy or are they developing as we would expect a baby to develop? "
For a child with CP learning to move, the really important things to remember are that the child should always be active.
Babies develop about 80% of their brain growth over the first two years of life, and it's also when all the connections in the brain, what we call the white matter, which is the cables in the brain, grow and develop and connect to the cortex.
Receiving early diagnoses or high‐risk for CP classification is a parent priority. Alignment between parents and providers exists for International Classification of Function domains of body functions/structures and activity, but less for those of environment, personal, and participation.
My name is Nathalie Maitre, I work at Nationwide Children's Hospital. I'm a physician and a researcher
Owen is our third baby and after a healthy pregnancy and making it to 38 weeks, I thought we would coast into life with three kids and adapt to the beautiful chaos that is life outnumbered by little ones. Somewhere in between, I ended up watching as my newborn baby was packed up into a life-flight helicopter and whisked away before I even got a chance to hold him. I would do whatever it took to get to Owen at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, I would will him from hundreds of miles away to hang on, to fight long enough for me to get there – and then we could do “whatever it took” together.
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.
After we got the diagnosis we met with Dr. Maitre the next day and she gave us a roadmap.
She was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 12 months & Constraint-induced movement therapy helped her recover the use of her left side.
Owen was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 6 months. By getting an early diagnosis his life changed forever.
A lot of parents don't realize that their baby, all the skills that they have. So they can look at you, they can follow you. They're already starting to imitate you, and through the first few months of life, they're already starting to learn to reach and grasp toys, and to have nonverbal communication with you.
Children with cerebral palsy experience brain damage around birth or before birth. So the language of the brain in other words, the way they will move, will be different from typical movements. So by looking at their movements, we will understand that there is something that is wrong in the brain.
