Home Page
Under the direction of Liz Boyer, PhD, the Cerebral Palsy Research Program focuses on improving the lives of children and adults with cerebral palsy (CP) by quantifying the prevalence and severity of various impairments and comorbidities, improving real-world diagnostics and prognosis, explaining the short- and long-term safety and efficacy outcomes of current treatments, and generating the knowledge around new treatments options. People with lived experience (patients, caregivers), clinicians, and researchers work synergistically to produce the highest quality science that is meaningful and usable by the healthcare professionals and families for whom the research impacts.
Areas of Current Cerebral Palsy Research
Our current focus is to help children and adults with CP lead active, fulfilling lives uninhibited by poor balance, falls, and their subsequent effect on multiple aspects of people’s lives. We aim to be the preeminent care center for all aspects related to falls, from screening to prevention, assessment to intervention. This involves:
Elucidating the comprehensive physical and psychological outcomes from falls.
Determining which biological, behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental factors are causally associated with balance ability, falls, and fall-related outcomes.
Identifying who is at greatest risk of the various negative fall outcomes to inform simple and accurate screening.
Reporting changes in balance- and fall-related outcomes after surgery.
Conducting fundamental studies on the validity and reliability of our tests and tools to illuminate measurement uncertainty and its importance in medical decision-making.
Designing and testing interventions to mitigate poor balance and falls.
Understanding the role of pain on mobility and orthopedic surgery outcomes.
