The upcoming release of the It remake this September spells doom for the rapidly declining reputation of clowns. History has never been totally kind to these powder-faced jokers, but their public image took a hit in 2016 after Jared Leto appeared in Suicide Squad, which may or may not have led to a rash of clown-faced trolls getting arrested across the United States. Will clowns be pegged as weird bad guys forever? Not if a team of Israeli childrens doctors have their say. It turns out that clowns have an unexpectedly analgesic effect on physical pain, at least in kids receiving treatment for cerebral palsy, as their recent study in PLoS One showed. In the paper, published in April, the researchers showed that clown-care can help numb the pain caused by injections, which are used frequently in cerebral palsy treatment. Most children receiving clown-care reported lower pain levels similar to other clown studies, which is the goal of behavioral and cognitive interventions, the researchers wrote, noting that kids that didnt get clown care experienced a high level of pain that was unexpectedly high. The 45 kids with cerebral palsy made an ideal study group because their treatment exposes them to … Continue reading →

LOS ANGELES--(Business Wire)--The Orthopaedic Institute for Children announced today the expansion of the UCLA/OIC Center for Cerebral Palsy to the institutes downtown Los Angeles campus. The current center is housed at UCLA in West Los Angeles. Concurrent with this expansion OIC also announced the appointment of Rachel Thompson, M.D., as the centers new associate director. Cerebral palsy is the most common childhood disability in the United States, affecting more than 760,000 children and adults nationally. The UCLA/OIC Center for Cerebral Palsy is the only interdisciplinary clinic in Southern California that evaluates and treats people with cerebral palsy throughout the lifespan. The center includes a comprehensive outpatient clinic and the Kameron Gait and Motion Analysis Laboratory (providing an in-depth understanding of a patients movement patterns). Under the leadership of Co-Founder and Director William Oppenheim, M.D., the center is also heavily involved in research in the field of cerebral palsy and in educating both consumers and professionals as to the most up-to-date assessment and treatment approaches for people with cerebral palsy. Dr. Thompson comes to OIC from A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children at the University of Delaware where she completed a fellowship in neuromuscular orthopaedics. She completed her first fellowship in pediatric … Continue reading →

The Hindu A giant leap to independence, one step at a time The Hindu Vipul Shah, a businessman from Ghatkopar whose son Rohan (16) is going through the Vasa treatment for cerebral palsy, says his son had a motor control disorder from birth. He was advised physiotherapy, prescribed huge dosages of drugs, given stem cell ... View post: A giant leap to independence, one step at a time - The Hindu … Continue reading →

Peter Hodges two daughters fight cystic fibrosis daily, their medications, doctor visits and hospitalizations costing about $1 million in health care benefits a year. Should the Republican-controlled Senate upend insurance similarly to what the House of Representatives has already approved, their lives could be jeopardized, he said. Hodge worries that his older daughter could end up on a newly defined Medicaid, with spending and other limits determined by the states. His younger daughter could face lifetime caps on the amount his insurance plan would pay for her treatment. "People with cystic fibrosis and their families are terrified, absolutely terrified," said Hodge, who works in technology in South Florida. Trump Administration Bolstered by High Employment Rate Congressional attempts to revamp the health care system have been overshadowed by the drama centered on the White House: the Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey and the appointment of a former FBI director, Robert Mueller, as a special counsel. But even as some political analysts sayTrump'sproblems threaten the GOP legislative agenda, senators have begun discussing health care. And as they do, people across the country are trying to make sense of what Republican efforts … Continue reading →