Easton Jordan has seen Lauren Walier only twice, but she already has made a powerful impression. When the two spoke last month, 5-year-old Easton showed Walier a video of him using his walker without a sling to hold himself up one of his latest milestones. "He continually tells people, 'One day, I won't need a wheelchair. I won't need a walker. I will run across a field,'" said his mother, Jill Jordan. The kindergartner from Orchard Park, and Walier, 19, who lives outside Atlanta, have three big things in common: cerebral palsy, a steely determination and a novel physical therapy that has helped take Walier from a wheelchair to a walker, then a crutch to a cane and, during the last year, to the top of the ballroom dancing world. Easton recently became one of the first people in Western New York to begin an intensive form of physical therapy called the Symptom Recovery Model, which aims to retrain the body's muscles, joints and tendons to become less spastic and more flexible. The model is largely unused and unknown outside Georgia, where Sue Leger, a doctor of physical therapy, has developed and improved it during the last dozen years in … Continue reading →

Life Lessons: Surgery for Cerebral Palsy ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Bhoomi Manjunatha, 5, has been able to rely less on her walker and wheelchair, and more on her own two feet, because of a surgery performed at Nationwide Childrens Hospital. Her hard work and determination in physical and occupational therapy postsurgery has also helped Bhoomi continue to make strides. Bhoomi was born with cerebral palsy and spasticity, a muscle control disorder that involves tight or stiff muscles and the inability to control those muscles. Spasticity affects more than 12 million people worldwide, including 80 percent of people with cerebral palsy. The spinal surgery Bhoomi had in November, called selective dorsal rhizotomy, was performed by Jeffrey R. Leonard, MD, chief of Neurosurgery at Nationwide Childrens. In the operating room, the surgery team anatomically divided out dorsal nerve roots which control the sensory portion of the spinal cord. They stimulate them electronically to determine which rootlets were abnormal and section about 60 percent of the feedback to prevent the tightening and stiffness that Bhoomi experienced. The surgery went well, but my part is easy. It is Bhoomi who has months of hard work and therapy ahead of her to strengthen her muscles to … Continue reading →

TWO Stewarton parents are on a mission to raise enough funds to help their daughter. Little Leah Pattison was diagnosed with hemiplegia a type of cerebral palsy when she was just six months old. The condition injured the right side of her brain before she was born and now affects her motor skills on her left side of the body. The fighting tot is now 18 months old and is eligible to take part in a treatment for her condition in Manchester. Parents Patricia Melly and Christopher Pattison are fundraising hard to get the 9000 cost of the pioneering CIMT treatment paid for. Patricia said: The constraint induced movement therapy works so that Leah would be made to use her left side and not the healthy right side. Some of the results have been wonderful and we really think that it is something she will benefit from. The treatment would give her a much better quality of life, at the minute she would be unable to do the every day things that we take for granted, like tying shoes, using a knife and fork or tying your hair up in a ponytail. We are looking to raise some money because … Continue reading →

Sunday lunch at the Umtamvuna River Lodge was a lovely family affair for Ryan (left), Kyle (3) and Ezette Hood of Port Edward. GABRIELLA Dry (4) of Port Edward was born prematurely at only 29 weeks. After 75 days in NICU and a few complications she was left with neurological damage. At a year she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Ellas life has been full of challenges, but it never stops her smiling and living life to the fullest. YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN :Little Warrior Princess needs your help At the moment Ella and her mom Nicole are in Johannesburg for grommet surgery, blood tests and intensive hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). Parents Kevin and Nicole of the Umtamvuna River Lodge are trying to raise funds to get Gabriella to India for stem cell treatment as this form of therapy has proven hugely beneficial with this type of cerebral palsy. Digger succumbs Well-respected local Digger (Digby) Elliott of Leisure Bay (77) died from heart failure at the Port Shepstone Regional Hospital on May 26. He underwent surgery for a collapsed lung in October last year and never fully recovered. Little Gabriella Dry (4) with mom Nicole at … Continue reading →