View clinical trials related to Cerebral Palsy.
Filter by:Pediatric Constraint-Induced (CI) Movement therapy is a rehabilitation program designed to improve motor function in children with partial paralysis. Children with cerebral palsy may have one arm that has significantly greater function (good arm) than the other (bad arm). Restricting the use of the good arm may improve the use of the bad arm. In pediatric CI therapy, the good arm is put in a sling to force increased use of the bad arm. The bad arm is also trained each day for several weeks. This study will test the ability of pediatric CI therapy to improve motor function in children with cerebral palsy.
This study examines botulinum toxin (BOTOX, or BTX) for the treatment of muscle twitches and spasticity associated with cerebral palsy in children. Botulinum toxin is a naturally occurring bacterial toxin (botulinum toxin) that inactivates certain parts of muscles.
As many more premature infants survive, the numbers of these infants with health problems increases. The rate of cerebral palsy (CP) in extremely premature infants is approximately 20%. Magnesium sulfate, the most commonly used drug in the US to stop premature labor, may prevent CP. This trial tests whether magnesium sulfate given to a woman in labor with a premature fetus (24 to 31 weeks out of 40) will reduce the rate of death or moderate to severe CP in the children at 2 years. The children receive ultrasounds of their brains as infants and attend three follow-up visits over two years to assess their health and development.
We propose to identify patients and families for inclusion in pilot studies of the three modalities. Patients and their families will be asked to participate in these studies. Our research group has done some preliminary work with the modality of hypnotherapy, but has no experience to date with the other two modalities. The idea to try relaxation techniques was generated by the observation that there is great variation in the degree to spasticity at different times in the same patient with CP. When queried, mothers responded that they were able to get their child to relax and decrease the tension in their muscles by stroking, talking softly, and/or by playing certain types of music. The availability of hypnosis and training in self-hypnosis was presented to several families of our patients. Their understanding and acceptance of this alternate therapy was gratifying. The results of this therapy have been promising and have encouraged us to proceed with this modality and to consider making other nonconventional modalities available to our patients. We hypothesize that at least one of the two modalities will be accepted readily by patients with CP and their families, and with their acceptance compliance with the method chosen will be at levels of 80 percent or more.
OBJECTIVES: I. Assess the efficacy and safety of selective dorsal rhizotomy and physiotherapy compared with physiotherapy alone in improving gross motor function and reducing spasticity in children with spastic diplegia.