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Natural History of Cerebral Palsy and Outcome Assessment

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Handbook of Human Motion

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Abstract

Cerebral palsy (CP) is defined as “a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, that are attributed to nonprogressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain. The motor disorders of CP are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, perception, cognition, communication, and behavior, by epilepsy; and by secondary musculoskeletal problems.” Though the neurological disturbance is nonprogressive, the natural history is for deterioration in gait and motor function due to musculoskeletal pathology.

The natural history and outcomes of musculoskeletal problems are discussed. The measurement tools and comprehensive assessment used to evaluate gross motor function and gait impairments in children with CP are presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pediatric Orthopaedic Department, University Children’s Hospital Basel, 4031, Basel, Switzerland

    Erich Rutz

  2. Hugh Williamson Gait Analysis Laboratory, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Pam Thomason

Authors
  1. Erich Rutz
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  2. Pam Thomason
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erich Rutz .

Section Editor information

  1. Institut for Biomechanics und Orthopedic, German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Gert-Peter Brüggemann

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

    Zhigang Deng

  3. McIntosh Consultancy and Research, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Andrew S. McIntosh

  4. Wilmington, Delaware, USA

    Freeman Miller

  5. C-Motion Inc., Germantown, USA

    W. Scott Selbie

  6. duPont Hospital for Children, Box 269, 19899, Wilmington, DE, USA

    Freeman Miller

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Rutz, E., Thomason, P. (2018). Natural History of Cerebral Palsy and Outcome Assessment. In: Handbook of Human Motion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14418-4_49

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