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Cerebral Palsy - Back to News Menu
Lab offers help for cerebral palsy
Low-birth-weight babies far more likely to suffer such brain damage
Jan. 09, 2006 - Breonna Bergstrom longs to dance, and on this early December morning, she looks the part. The 11-year-old stands tall on her left leg as an instructor moves her right leg and calls out the motions. "Up … out … swing to the side … back … around … good." The choreography might help Breonna at her high school prom some day, but it isn't really a dance.
The dance hall in this case is a motion lab at Gillette Children's Hospital in St. Paul, the instructor is a physical therapist, and the performer is a girl with cerebral palsy, a type of brain damage that limits mobility.
Most of the children who come here, including Breonna, were born prematurely or at low birth weights. Children born weighing less than 3.3 pounds are 30 times as likely to develop cerebral palsy as are children born at typical weights.
Researchers are studying that connection and ways to prevent cerebral palsy among preemies. Meanwhile, Gillette and a few other pediatric hospitals are using motion labs to analyze and improve the range of motion of children with the incurable disorder. "It helps our clinicians, the physicians and the therapists get patient-specific information that they can't see with their eyes, they can't feel with their hands," said Michael Schwartz, Gillette's director of bioengineering research.
Cerebral palsy covers a wide range of disorders in which the damaged brain gives faulty signals to the nerves that carry out voluntary movements. The disorder can disrupt walking, cause spastic movements and impair thinking. Preemies often suffer brain bleeds or even miniature strokes, which can cause the disorder by killing or damaging brain cells that regulate movement. Preemies also are prone to infections that can cause similar damage.
Breonna was born 12 weeks before her due date — at 2 pounds, 7 ounces. She had bruising on her head — trauma from her delivery. Her parents suspect that caused her cerebral palsy.
On Dec. 16, the Austin, Minn., girl made her sixth trip to the Gillette lab, which uses the same virtual reality sensors and infrared cameras that software companies use to create lifelike video games.
Fitted with motion sensors at her joints, Breonna performed routine motions so the cameras could record her basic physical dimensions. Then she walked in a straight line, stepping on sensors that indicated how she plants and exerts pressure on her feet and joints.
A computer collected the images and sensor readings and created a stick figure on its screen that replicated the hitches in Breonna's stride. Nationally, there is disagreement in medical research over whether these labs lead to better diagnostic decisions.
Gillette's Schwartz is a believer. There are more than 100 surgeries performed at Gillette for cerebral palsy, he said, and the lab determines which ones will offer the most benefit. His own research showed patients receiving a certain type of hamstring surgery fared much better when the surgery was selected as the result of motion lab tests.
Breonna's mobility has improved over time with the help of two surgeries and physical therapy. But she has recently shown some old tendencies to turn her feet inward and to walk flat-footed rather than heel-to-toe.
Her parents, Brad and Lisa, worry about how Breonna will cope with the disability in her teen years. Leg braces help her walk, but she doesn't like to use them when wearing shorts or a skirt. Breonna sometimes balks at her stretching exercises and therapy and hates the corrective brace that painfully straightens her knees when she goes to sleep.
Her parents keep up the encouragement. Breonna recently saw a prom dress and shoes that she liked in a storefront window, and her father didn't miss the opportunity. "If you're going to wear those shoes," he said, "you're going to have to keep up with your stretching."
Jeremy Olson can be reached at jolson@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5583.
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