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Cerebral Palsy - Back to News Menu
Roseburg grad develops cerebral palsy therapy
Andrea Downing, a 1998 Roseburg High School graduate and an Arizona State University student, has designed a device to help cerebral palsy patients improve their coordination and control. She recently received a $90,000 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to continue her research.
TERESA WILLIAMS, twilliams@newsreview.info
January 4, 2006 - Andrea Downing doesn’t know any children with cerebral palsy, but she’s working on a physical therapy device that will help them improve their coordination and control.
The 1998 Roseburg High School graduate recently received a $90,000 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to continue her research; she is the first Arizona State University student in the bioengineering department to receive the grant.
Her parents, Allan and Sheryl Kirkendall, still live in Roseburg, and her father is a psychologist for Roseburg Veterans Affairs Medical Center, but Downing’s interest in medicine didn’t come from him. It came from getting hurt.
“I played sports all through RHS, and I spent a lot of time in the trainer’s room with injuries,” she said. She developed a fascination with the human body.
She wanted to study medicine, but she also enjoyed her high school calculus class with Don Crossfield.
“He really encouraged me to pursue the mathematics and to be a thinker,” she said. “He was a great math teacher.”
Crossfield remembers Downing as a student who wasn’t satisfied with the right answer. She wanted to understand the underlying structure of a problem, he said. She finished calculus — the most advanced math class the school offered — when she was a junior, so she took classes at Umpqua Community College her senior year.
“She was very athletic,” Crossfield said. “And during her junior year she had a severe knee injury, and it caused her to rethink things.”
Downing became very interested in technology and how it could be used to help people with injuries, Crossfield said.
“I remember that about her back then,” he said. “When she settled on something, she was able to be so focused.”
Downing majored in engineering with a mechanical concentration at LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas, where she met her husband, Elliott. She planned to go to medical school after that, but she really enjoyed engineering.
Downing, 26, is in her fourth year at Arizona State University and is working on her master’s and doctorate. Her program combines rehabilitation engineering and neuroscience.
Downing has spent the last year researching cerebral palsy. The condition is not a specific diagnosis; it’s a classification of motor deficits that are the result of a brain injury, she said.
‘Catching up’ is an occasional feature of The News-Review that profiles people who have ties to Douglas County but no longer live here. If you know of someone whose life has taken an interesting turn, contact News-Review City Editor Vicki Menard, e-mail: vmenard@newsreview.info, or 957-4201.
Her interest in the condition came through her advisers. She first worked for a professor who was interested in modeling movement with a computer, and her current adviser is interested in neurological disorders.
Most of the information Downing found emphasized that children with cerebral palsy are weaker than other children.
“But that doesn’t explain the whole issue,” she said. Common actions don’t take a lot of strength, but they do take control.
She believes that children with cerebral palsy can’t use proper force to complete simple actions like picking up a paper cup.
Downing has designed software for a device where children with cerebral palsy push metal plates with their feet. By using the proper amount of force, they direct a cursor into a target.
“Hopefully, it will be a little like playing a video game,” Downing said.
She’s tried the device herself.
“It’s not easy,” she said. “You have to think about what you’re trying to make your body do, which I think is a good thing.”
Downing will ask 8- to 14-year-olds to work with the device for 30 minutes three times a week for six weeks. She will also analyze the children’s posture and the way they walk. The goal is to improve overall coordination and control.
She’s hoping to get started in March. She has a little more software development and a lot of writing to do, she said.
Before she starts working with children, she has to present a prospectus to a committee, which will serve as her master’s thesis and her contract for her doctorate degree.
The grant will help, providing $90,000 over three years to cover her tuition, a stipend and some research.
The application was thick, she said, and reviewers considered more than Downing’s ideas and research. They also analyzed whether her adviser would be able to train her properly and whether the university facilities were adequate for the research she proposed.
Each application was given a score, and the top percentage received funds. Downing doesn’t know how many people she was up against.
After she finishes her degree, she would like to work with a team of therapists in a research hospital.
“I think ideally my interests really lie in physical therapy,” she said.
• You can reach reporter Teresa Williams at 957-4230 or via e-mail at twilliams@newsreview.info.
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