Cerebral Palsy

Challenge More than 770,000 Canadians are currently living with ASD, FASD or CP — the most common neurodevelopmental disabilities. Treatments for these conditions have been focused on behavioural and symptom management because there now are no cures or effective preventions. For health care decision-makers to be able to make informed choices, there needs to be [...]

Challenge The Canadian Cerebral Palsy Registry initially launched in 2003 as a platform to store data from people diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP). It has since expanded to include more than 2,250 participants with the disorder and has resulted in more than 35 academic publications. The next phase of the project is looking to expand [...]

Challenge In Canada, there have been poor outcomes for children with a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD), with educational achievement and employment outcomes being the lowest of all existing disability groups. This outcome is a result of the unmet needs by services for children with a neurodevelopmental disorder and their families. Describing these needs for children with [...]

Challenge More than 80,000 Canadians are living with Cerebral Palsy (CP). Yet, families often feel isolated and are unsure how to find services or where to access the most up-to-date CP-related information. Project Summary The Cerebral Palsy Canada Network (CPCanNet) was created to connect families to information through CP Associations across Canada, by acting as [...]

Challenge There has historically been a lack of population-based information on how cerebral palsy presents in children, including possible risk factors, antecedent causes, functional severity,  and co-morbidities of the condition. To better understand the condition, the Canadian Cerebral Palsy Registry was created in Cycle I. Project Summary The Registry is a confidential, nation-wide collection of [...]

Challenge While cerebral palsy (CP) researchers continue to make meaningful scientific discoveries, there have been barriers to communicating those findings to other scientists, clinicians, families and the public. Project Summary The Cerebral Palsy Demonstration Project has been helping to address this issue with the Knowledge Translation and Exchange (KT) Strategy. The KT team has worked [...]

Challenge Up to 90% of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) experience sleep problems, particularly insomnia, which refers to difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking up in the morning. This number is in stark contrast to the 25% of typically developing children who have trouble sleeping. Poor sleep can lead to significant consequences for children’s [...]

Challenge Premature infants are the largest subgroup of children with cerebral palsy (CP), and the prevalence of CP in these infants has remained high despite improved overall survival rates. White matter injuries and infections during pregnancy are a significant risk factor in CP, and studies show that factors impacting gene expression may be linked to [...]

Challenge A lot of genomics data has been published on neurodevelopmental disabilities, but researchers face challenges in accessing this information. Data found in the literature is often scattered and difficult to synthesize, and simply aggregating data onto one platform isn’t sufficient. Project Summary This project aimed to examine the literature on the genomics of FASD, [...]

Challenge Neuroscience is a broad field with a vast array of research and findings. The research often interconnects in various ways and allows scientists to extrapolate data that is useful for future projects. The problem, however, was to create a database where this information could be shared, accessed and used in meaningful ways. Project Summary [...]