celebrating potential, creating possibilities - The Centre for Cerebral ...

•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Technology, funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage
Grant. The aim of the study is to investigate the factors and
develop strategies to build citizenship capacities and promote
wellbeing in young people with CP aged between 18 and
25 years as they move into adulthood and take on increased
responsibilities.
Family to Family Respite Experiences. Funded through Non-
Government Centre Support Grants, the project resulted in the
development of a resource booklet for families that collates
the narratives of families and adolescents using in and out of
home respite services of The Centre for Cerebral Palsy.
First Click Initiative. The third First Click project U Can Do I.T.
has built on past successful experiences by providing another
12 individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities with
basic computer training. Providing the right level of support
for people living with CP who have high support needs is the
key to success.
Postural Support Seating Workshops. The Centre’s Senior
Occupational Therapists Andrea Williams and Lorraine Johnson
have developed a three-part interactive, competency based
training package to give therapists the opportunity to learn
and develop their skills in the specialist area of positioning and
postural seating.
At a National level, The Centre has led the development of the
first ever national study on the Therapy and Equipment Needs
of Australians with CP on behalf of CP Australia. In partnership
with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW),
CP Australia achieved national acclaim for the research study
into the needs of Australians with CP. There are over 33,000
Australians with CP with an unmet need for therapy and
equipment costed as high as $59.2 million. The full study is at
www.aihw.gov.au.
Physiotherapists from The Centre have completed a systematic
review of the effects of casting on equinus in children with CP.
The review has been endorsed by the American Academy of
Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine and appears on
their website at www.aacpdm.org It will also be published in
the journal Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology.
A team of Occupational Therapists from The Centre conducted
a systematic review of the effects of soft splinting on upper
limb function in people with CP. After finding only five articles
that reported the results of using soft splints on upper limb
function in people with CP, the team recommended more
research be conducted in this important area.
Senior Physiotherapy staff published a review entitled ‘The
effectiveness of passive stretching in children with cerebral
palsy’ in the journal Developmental Medicine and Child
Neurology, Volume 48, Number 10, pages 855-62.
The CP Tech Sleep Solutions team consists of a Senior
Physiotherapist and a Senior Occupational Therapist, who have
both become members of the Australasian Sleep Research
•
•
Barbara chooses a book
Society. Sue McCabe, Senior Occupational Therapist, visited the
UK, USA and North America as part of her Churchill Fellowship
award to examine international ‘sleep’ research facilities and
programmes.
Lead by the Senior Speech Pathologist, Complex Communication
Needs, is a research project being undertaken to evaluate the
effectiveness of PROMPT (a motor speech treatment approach)
in facilitating changes in speech intelligibility for children with
CP. Six Speech Pathologists and children from both the Early
Intervention and School Age Intervention Programmes are
participating.
The Captain Harry Howden Trust funded a Constraint-Induced
Movement Therapy (CIMT) day camp for adolescents with
hemiplegic CP. During the camp, the adolescents wore a mitt
on their less impaired hand and did a wide variety of activities
with the other hand to practise using it more. The findings of
this camp were positive overall with resounding enthusiasm
for the process from the young people who participated.
21