The Cerebral Palsy (CP) Research Network congratulates investigator Bhooma Aravamuthan, MD, DPhil and her co-authors for the publication of her CP Research Network study entitled “Diagnostic preferences include discussion of etiology for adults with cerebral palsy and their caregivers.” The publication, released in the journal Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology in January 2022, describes the results of her survey of community members about the importance of understanding their possible etiologies (origins) of CP. The results of the study indicate that most community members with a diagnostic preference would want to know both their CP diagnosis and any information about their potential etiologic diagnoses.

Dr. Aravamuthan has been a strong advocate for shifting the practice of clinicians that make a CP diagnosis to include information that is important to families for numerous reasons. This article concludes that physicians should change practice to include all information about etiologic diagnoses with their CP diagnosis. This may include, in some situations, stating that the etiologies of a person’s CP are not known.

“Based on survey work we have done with clinicians, many tend to provide either a diagnosis of CP, or a diagnosis describing the etiology of CP, but not both,” said Dr. Aravamuthan, a pediatric movement disorders neurologist as Washington University in St. Louis. “But this study shows that families value the services and the sense of community of having both diagnoses when available.”

We have made the article in its pre-approved state available to members of the MyCP community. As with many academic publications, this article is not available for free for the general public but the journal allows for authors to post pre-approved versions. MyCP members can find the article in our CPRN Private Archive. Interested community members can join MyCP for free to access this article and other services such as personalized resource recommendations and free adaptive fitness programs.