CPRN (Cerebral Palsy Research Network) news updates everything CPRN is doing for, and within, the cerebral palsy community. You will discover updated research information, new location sites for the Cerebral Palsy Registry, and more for you to check out today!

Dr. Kristie Bjornson in a bright green CPRN shirt and holding an orthotic.

CP Research Network Hires Scientific Director

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Kristie Bjornson, PT, PhD. A smiling woman with blond hair, wearing a black vest over maroon turtleneck in a hospital hallway.

Kristie Bjornson, PT, PhD, MS, has been hired by the CP Research Network to be the Scientific Director.

The Cerebral Palsy Research Network hired Kristie Bjornson, PT, PhD, MS to lead its scientific direction. Dr. Bjornson, featured in our CP Stories in April 2021, is a leader in the field of research for cerebral palsy. In her new role, Dr. Bjornson will lead the network’s effort to pursue public funding from granting agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the National Institute on Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research. Dr. Bjornson brings multi-center clinical trial experience for various interventions for CP (i.e. surgery, injections, orthoses, and rehabilitation).

“I’m excited to merge my experience in clinical research in cerebral palsy with the power of the network,” said Dr. Bjornson. “There are so many important to questions to answer for our community and the network is a highly efficient way to conduct this research.”

In addition to her role as Scientific Director, Dr. Bjornson will continue as a site principal investigator for Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH) where her first-hand experience with our registry will be invaluable to our future research endeavors as she has real world experience with how the registry can be used to make clinical research more effective. Under her leadership, SCH has become a significant contributor to the richness of data in the network’s cerebral palsy registry as SCH has enrolled its entire CP population. Understanding and leveraging the registry to plan new research studies is a great strength that Dr. Bjornson brings to the network.

CP Awareness Month Begins

CP Awareness Month Begins!

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A young woman with cerebral palsy leans on a tree while hiking.

Come back every day to vote for YOUR favorite pictures.

Join the Cerebral Palsy (CP) Research Network in our activities to celebrate National CP Awareness month. This recognized month is a great opportunity for us to create awareness about living with CP for the general public to help fund research, support disability policies, and to promote inclusion. There is so much you can do to help the community:

  1. In February, we gathered photos for our CP Awareness photo contest. You can vote for the best picture in each of five categories on our website. We will be awarding a total of $1,000 in cash prizes to the winners on national CP Awareness Day – March 25! Go vote for your favorites – and share them on social media to get more votes.
  2. We have CP facts as Facebook banners that you can download and use to spread the word. We will be posting a CP fact every day on our Facebook and Instagram – feel free to share those!
  3. You can buy CP Research Network merchandise at our Bonfire store and wear green through the month! A portion of the proceeds is donated to our work!
  4. You can donate or start a Facebook fundraiser – our board with 2X match the donations you give or raise throughout the month of March!

Please help us in our efforts to spread awareness for cerebral palsy!

Three photos show a woman in a wheelchair lifting weights, a nutritious meal and a peaceful day the beach

Free Mindfulness, Exercise, and Nutrition Course

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A cutting board and knife are laid out with healthy ingredients and a fry pan.

One of the core curriculum of MENTOR is nutrition which is of greater importance for people with cerebral palsy for their daily and long term health.

The Cerebral Palsy Research Network has partnered with the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) to provide free virtual training classes on mindfulness, exercise and nutrition (MENTOR). NCHPAD is funded through a grant from the Centers for Disease Control to promote opportunities that are crucial to the health of people with a physical disability. The CP Research Network piloted the MENTOR program in April 2021 to provide feedback on the program for people with cerebral palsy (CP). NCHPAD was recently funded for the next five years and chose the CP Research Network as their partner for the CP community.

The MENTOR program is held over eight weeks for one hour a day. Classes meet virtually and have instructors from different disciplines to teach mindfulness, nutritional health and adaptive exercise. Some exercise equipment is provided free of charge. The classes offer optional add-on private coaching to tailor the content for the individual participating. The next class for people with CP will begin in April.

An informational webinar is being planned for February 23 at 4 pm ET with NCHPAD chief executive Dr. James Rimmer and past participants from the CP community. Adults with CP that are interested in learning more should visit our Cerebral Palsy Fitness page or send an email to mentor@cprn.org. Go to our MyCP webinar series page to sign up for the informational webinar.

A woman in a chair lifting weights, a girl swimming in a triathalon, a college graduate seeking work and triples in a swing.

Cerebral Palsy Awareness Photo Contest

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Young man with cerebral palsy sits in his red walker, while facing the ocean on the sandy beach.In advance of Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, which runs each year throughout the month of March, the Cerebral Palsy Research Network has launched a photo contest to highlight the lives and experiences of community members living with CP. The contest invites members of the community to submit up to five photos photos that depict their day-to-day life, adventures, challenges, joys, and journey. The CP Research Network has opened its gallery of submissions and will award $1,000 in cash prizes to five winners on March 25, 2022 – the day officially designated as National CP Awareness Day in the United States.

“We find that the CP community is underrepresented in so many forms of media today,” said Paul Gross, President and CEO of the CP Research Network. “As an example, stock photography agencies have very limited authentic photographs of the lived experience for people with CP.” The CP Awareness Photo Contest seeks to develop a rich set of authentic photos of people with CP that can be used in the CP Research Network’s growing cerebral palsy awareness campaigns for March and beyond!

The CP Awareness Photo Contest is opens today on CPRN.ORG. Contestants must be members of MyCP and may participate as an advocate, clinician, researcher or community member Prizes will be awarded as follows:

Category Prize
Creativity $100
Diversity $100
Participation and inclusion $100
Perseverance $100
Physical activity $100
Best Overall $500

Winners will be chosen via a combination of votes and final selection by the CP Research Network. Contestants must sign a photo release as part of the entry process. Photos will be displayed on CPRN.ORG and CP Research Network social media channels. Detailed rules for entries can be found on the photo contest rules page. Dig through your archives or snap a new picture and submit it soon!

Happy New Year 2022 from the CP Research Network with a black background and fireworks in the corners

Happy New Year from the CP Research Network

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At the Cerebral Palsy Research Network, we have a lot to be thankful for.  You, our great extended cerebral palsy (CP) community, helped us achieve our fundraising goal of $10,000 this past month for our MyCP webinar series in 2022.  With our board of directors’ matching, we raised more than $30,000 for our network! We are excited to bring our MyCP webinar series back in full swing next week beginning with a live interview of the authors of Pure Grit (details to come out tomorrow).  Thank you to all who contributed and helped to spread the word!

2021 in Review

Last year was transformative in numerous ways for the CP Research Network.  We kicked off the year with the announcement of our merger with CP NOW. The combination of their educational and wellness programming with our efforts led to significant accomplishments including:

 

Our Research and Quality Improvement initiatives made significant progress in both seeking to answer key research questions about CP and improving the treatment of people with CP now.  A few highlights include:

What’s new for 2022?

We have a lot of projects that will culminate in 2022! These include multiple publications of our work in leading journals, partnerships to sustain and grow our wellbeing offerings, continued progress on our research and quality initiatives, and the return of our MyCP webinar series to name a few.

There are lots of ways to stay engaged with us.

Please consider one of these:

All the best to you and the entire CP community for 2022!

 

 

 

 

October 6 is World CP Day - Millioins of Reasons to Spread the Word

CP Research Network Featured at AACPDM

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The Cerebral Palsy Research Network was invited alongside of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and C-Progress to teach early-stage investigators how to establish a successful research program at their institution during the annual meeting of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine (AACPDM). The nine-hour pre-conference tutorial featured presentations from each of these research and funding organizations to emphasize key steps for an investigator to get funding. The CP Research Network is differentiated from its co-presenters by being an organization that facilitates and conducts research.

In addition to presenting the network’s programs, registries, and tools, CEO Paul Gross held a breakout session for Q&A with interested attendees. “It was an honor to present our mission and vision alongside the largest public funders for research – NIH and PCORI,” said Gross. “The attendees also heard from Dr. Michael Kruer about his experience working with the CP Research Network to gain $3M in funding from NIH for his genetic causes of CP study.”

This pre-conference session fell on October 6 – World CP Day – when the CP Research Network Board of Directors has offered to match donations two-fold! World CP Day creates awareness about CP and much needed research around the globe. We are excited to be part of accelerating that research by educating new investigators to the field.

A three-panel banner of St. Louis Children’s Hospital and headshots of Dr. Toni Pearson and Dr. Bhooma Aravamuthan.

St. Louis Children’s Hospital Joins Our Network

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Dr. Ton Pearson, with short brown hair smiling in a white lab coat, leads the Cerebral Palsy Center at St. Louis Children's

Toni Pearson, MD, Medical Director of the Cerebral Palsy Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital is a pediatric movement disorders neurologist.

Dr. Aravamuthan, a movement disorders neurologist, smiles with dark rimmed glasses and long, brown hair in a white lab coat

Bhooma Aravamuthan, MD, DPhil, is a pediatric movement disorders neurologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital who specializes in the treatment and research of cerebral palsy.

The Cerebral Palsy Research Network is happy to announce that St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University in St. Louis have joined our network. Toni Pearson, MD, Medical Director of the Cerebral Palsy Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and her colleague Bhooma Aravamuthan, MD, DPhil, will lead both institutions in the participation in network research and quality improvement activities. St. Louis Children’s Hospital (SLCH) is a tertiary-care (a hospital that is highly specialized) children’s hospital affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis, and is the largest pediatric referral center in Missouri and the surrounding region.

The SLCH Cerebral Palsy (CP) Center is based in the Division of Pediatric and Developmental Neurology, and treats approximately 800 unique patients annually. The CP center cares for a diverse range of patients with childhood-onset conditions associated with motor impairment, including cerebral palsy as well as varied genetic, metabolic, and neurodegenerative conditions.

The core interdisciplinary CP clinical team is composed of 4 pediatric neurologists with subspecialty training in movement disorders, 2 pediatric physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians, physical therapists, an occupational therapist, a social worker, a nurse practitioner, and a nurse coordinator.

The CP Center works in collaboration with the Neurosurgery Center for Cerebral Palsy Spasticity (directed by Dr. T.S. Park), as well as colleagues in Orthopedic Surgery, the SLCH Pediatric Complex Care Clinic, and the Neonatal Neurology Clinic, to coordinate care for children with CP from infancy through adulthood.

CP Center faculty are engaged in research projects on the pathophysiology and clinical characterization of dystonia following perinatal brain injury, pediatric deep brain stimulation for genetic and acquired dystonia, and the clinical characterization and natural history of rare neurogenetic developmental motor disorders.

Small preview image of Dr. Laura Gilbert linking to blog post

Dystonia Agenda Takes Center Stage at Child Neurology Society Meeting

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Laura Gilbert, DO, a pediatric neurologist, with shoulder length brown hair and a dark green shirt, smiles broadly.

Laura Gilbert, DO, has won a Junior Member Award from the Child Neurology Society, for her abstract on a patient-centered dystonia research agenda.

Dr. Laura Gilbert, a pediatric neurologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, has been selected to present our Dystonia in Cerebral Palsy patient-centered research agenda at the Child Neurology Society (CNS) meeting in Boston, MA in September 2021.

Her talk, entitled, “Top 10 Areas of Research Need for People with Cerebral Palsy and Dystonia: A Novel Community-driven Agenda,” is based on collaborative work she carried out with the Network to engage the community in a research priority setting process for dystonia in CP in 2020.

“Dr. Gilbert played a significant role in the organization and analysis of our dystonia agenda setting process,” said Bhooma Aravamuthan, MD, DPhil, a pediatric movement disorders specialist from Washington University in St. Louis. “She is a smart and savvy burgeoning clinician researcher. It’s been a gift to see her interest bloom in dystonia in CP.”

The Child Neurology Society gathers neurologists annually to advance research and the treatment of pediatric neurological conditions. The live platform presentation has been selected as one of the top 20 abstracts submitted to the meeting. Further congratulations are in order for Dr. Gilbert who will be recognized as one of four Outstanding Junior Members for her work.

Her talk, and talks by her mentor Dr. Aravamuthan, will increase the focus on CP at this year’s CNS meeting. This increased focus will improve child neurologist awareness of issues faced by people with CP and promote research opportunities in the field.

Small preview image of a spider graph linking to blog post

CPRN’s progress as a Learning Health Network is published!

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The Cerebral Palsy Research Network’s progress as a Learning Health Network (LHN) has been published in the Journal for Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine this past week.

Primary author Amy Bailes, PT, PhD, published a self-assessment from leaders in the Cerebral Palsy Research Network using a tool developed by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital called the Network Maturity Grid (NMG).[1] The NMG is used to detail the maturation of necessary infrastructure and processes to create learning networks (LNs).

Bailes’ publication, the fourth since the CP Research Network’s inception six years ago, provides a glimpse into future directions for the network’s development. It details a standardizing scoring rubric used to assess progress across six domains including:

  • Systems of Leadership
  • Governance and Management
  • Quality Improvement
  • Engagement of Stakeholders
  • Data and Analytics
  • Research

The results were tabulated and graphed to provide insights into progress in each domain and areas for improvement.

The CP Research Network’s leadership team amalgamated this analysis to identify key investments that will improve our network maturity over the next five years. Moving forward, these investments will be centered on leadership development, financial sustainability, quality improvement training, the capture of patient-reported outcomes, and enhancing the quality of data collection.

The purple cover of the Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine has its title and graphics of children playing, a person in a wheelchair, walkers and helping hands inside of green, pink and orange circles.

The cover of the Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine.

The Network will incorporate the NMG tool into annual planning. Investments will be measured over the course of a five-year strategic plan for 2021-2025.

Members of the professional and academic community can access the article online with a Journal subscription. Community members may download the original article (prior to revisions required by the editors) from our website.

A small preview image of the Staying Driven logo linking to blog post ‘CP Research Network Launches New Fitness Program’.

CP Research Network Launches New Fitness Program

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We are excited to announce a new wellbeing program in partnership with Staying Driven and Steph “the Hammer” Roach! Beginning Tuesday, June 8th at 7 pm ET, Staying Driven coaches will offer virtual adaptive fitness classes exclusively to registered MyCP community members!

Steph 'The Hammer' Roach, Adaptive Fitness CoachStaying Driven - Virtual Adaptive FitnessStaying Driven is a virtual adaptive fitness program founded by Stephanie “the Hammer” Roach. An adult with CP and a former CrossFit trainer and gym owner, Steph shifted her business during the pandemic to virtual classes for people with disabilities. She and her staff of adaptive fitness trainers offer multiple classes a week for people with disabilities.

The CP Research Network has arranged for MyCP members to be able to attend up to two classes per week, free of charge!

To be eligible, you need to complete these registration requirements:

  1. Be a current member of MyCP (joining is free). Parents of teens under 18 need to be the active member.
  2. Participate in at least one MyCP survey (a list of available surveys can be seen here).
  3. Sign up for a free Zoom account for class registration.
  4. Read and sign the waiver for Staying Driven and the CP Research Network on the sign-up page

Are you ready? Go sign up!

How it works:  MyCP members who follow the steps above will receive an email from the CP Research Network with the link to the Zoom Registration for the fitness class with Staying Driven. Steph, or one of her other coaches, will run the class. The participant uses the link to register for each class.

When? Saturdays at noon ET/9 am PT or Tuesdays at 7 pm ET/4 pm PT

What should you bring? A water bottle, a hand towel and a positive attitude.

What about resistance or weights?  Classes are adapted for people of all ages and abilities. Steph will encourage you to gather items from around your house or apartment to participate. If you have a personal care attendant or a caregiver that wants to be involved, they are welcome to attend to assist.

What if I cannot make these times or I want to work out more often? The MyCP Fitness program only supports these two days and times. Staying Driven has monthly memberships that will allow you access to all of the regular programming if you are interested.

Do I need a note from my doctor? A doctor’s approval is up to your discretion. Think of it as joining a gym — the gym doesn’t require a note from the doctor, but the waiver makes clear that you are responsible for making the appropriate health choices for yourself.

Join us for this new and exciting program made possible through your generous donations to the CP Research Network!