February 2021:

CP-Achieve Newsletter

Happy New Year and welcome to our first newsletter for 2021.

Thank you to all our team who are already very busy planning a full year of research and education. We are very excited about our planned Symposium on May 27th and 28th. Please put these days in your diaries now. The Symposium will be a joint initiative with the Australasian Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine and will have the theme “Collaborate, Innovate, Achieve”.

It was with sadness that we farewelled Melissa Mulraney who has taken up a position with the Institute of Social Neuroscience. This new position will provide Melissa with wonderful opportunities and we congratulate her on being selected for this role. The good news is that Melissa will stay involved with our program and will have a position as an Honorary Research Associate on CP-Achieve. We are delighted to welcome Robbie Eres who commenced working with us in January, mainly focussing on mental health aspects of CP-Achieve. He has extensive experience investigating loneliness and mental health in vulnerable populations and I know he will make an excellent contribution.

Unfortunately, Professor Jenny Ziviani has had to step down as an Associate Investigator. We will miss her wisdom and extensive knowledge and skills, but she also will remain in touch with us.

We welcome PhD student Megan Walsh. The title of her PhD is “Conversations About Sexuality, Romance and Gender: Experiences of Adolescents with Cerebral Palsy and Complex Communication Needs and Their Guardians.” Megan has a background in speech pathology with particular knowledge of alternative and augmentative communication.

Please don’t forget to sign the petition for the Building Better Homes Campaign. It is vitally important that there are accessible standards for all new residential homes. This will make a huge difference moving forwards and is essential to ensure equity for people with cerebral palsy and those with other mobility impairments.

I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter. Please be in touch with us if you have ideas, thoughts about CP-Achieve or items for upcoming editions.

Dinah Reddihough, CP-Achieve Principal Investigator

CP-Achieve Webinar Series Next Episode: February 22nd 5-6pm

Our key messages:

Learn how the NHMRC grant is being used to benefit those whose lives are affected by CP;
Get to know us and our stories and learn how to be involved with the CRE;
Hear from people who are experts in the condition; including people with CP, their families/carers, clinicians, and researchers

Meet the Team

Dr Robert (Robbie) Eres began with CP-Achieve as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on January 11th, 2021. His expertise largely surrounds the social determinants of health and how social factors, including loneliness and social exclusion, exacerbate mental health symptoms and contribute to poor physical health outcomes.

Megan Walsh is a PhD Candidate working from Deakin University who started on February 1st. Her clinical focus is working with people who use Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) and their families, and she is currently involved in research around parent capacity building and AAC.

You can meet our entire team here: https://www.cp-achieve.org.au/about/our-team/

Research Updates

Pain in children with dyskinetic and mixed dyskinetic/spastic cerebral palsy

The distribution and type of motor problem experienced by people with cerebral palsy is variable. One type of motor problem is called ‘dyskinesia’. Those with dyskinetic cerebral palsy have trouble controlling muscle movement resulting in involuntary, twisting, or jerking movements.

Sometimes people with dyskinesia may also have spasticity in their muscles. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘mixed’ motor type of cerebral palsy. People with dyskinetic and ‘mixed’ types of cerebral palsy may be particularly prone to experiencing pain across their lifespan.You can read more about this important new study about pain in young people with cerebral palsy on our website: https://www.cp-achieve.org.au/resources/publications/

PhD Examinatio Completion:Simon Gabrellini

Simon's PhD was embedded within two randomised controlled and multi-site trials; The Minimising Impairment Trial and the Infant Wrist and Hand Orthosis Trial.

Simon continues his clinical work as a Senior Occupational Therapist at Perth Children's Hospital within the Cerebral Palsy Mobility Service. He is looking forward to a break to re-charge his batteries and explore further opportunities for clinical research.

The title of Simon’s PhD was: Prescribing Upper Limb Orthoses for Children with Cerebral Palsy: Exploring Decision Making and a Hand Deformity Classification to Guide Orthosis Prescription. The results of Simon's PhD will provide support for clinical decision making about the management of hand deformity and upper limb orthosis prescription for children with cerebral palsy. As part of his PhD, Simon refined and explored the validity and reliability of the Neurological Hand Deformity Classification as a tool to guide clinical decision making, including orthosis prescription.

A freely available website and downloadable manual and resources were produced for use by clinicians. This information can be found at www.neurohanddeformity.com.

2021 National Allied Health Online Conference - Call for Abstracts Open!

Submissions are sought for Oral Presentations, Lightning Oral Presentations, and Posters.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS CLOSE
11.59pm AEST Sunday 11th April 2021

http://www.nahc.com.au/home/abstract-submission

The Building Better Homes Campaign is a coalition of disability and seniors organisations working to change the National Building Code to make accessibility standards mandatory for all new residential homes.

Sign the Petition Today: https://www.change.org/.../join-the-campaign-to-make...

This will change the life of hundreds of thousands of Australians who are currently limited in their day to day activities simply because their housing doesn’t meet their needs.⁠

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