University of Virginia Health System

U.Va. Receives NIH Grant to Study Growth in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Through the five-year, multi-center study, known as the North American Growth in Cerebral Palsy Project, researchers at U.Va.'s Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center and at six other sites will measure the height and weight of hundreds of children with severe CP to understand more about their growth patterns. The NIH's National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research contributed $600,000 to the study.

Abnormal growth is generally accepted as a marker that a child may be ill or malnourished, said Dr. Richard Stevenson, associate professor of pediatrics at U.Va. and lead investigator of the study. But children with CP don't grow the same as other children, and because normal growth patterns for children with CP have not been established, it's often difficult for physicians to determine which children with CP are healthy and which are suffering from malnutrition or another growth-impairing ailment. Our goal is to develop a growth chart for kids with CP.

Other hospitals participating in the study are the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Rochester, the University of British Columbia and McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. The study is also supported by a grant from the Genentech Foundation for Growth and Development.

CP is a syndrome of motor dysfunction caused by an injury to the developing brain of a fetus or newborn. Common characteristics of CP include muscle tightness or spasm, involuntary movement and disturbance in gait and mobility. More than 500,000 children and adults in the United States have one or more of the symptoms of CP.

If we can establish normal growth patterns for children with CP, we can then look at what factors impair normal growth, which will ultimately enable us to take better care of children with CP and help them lead healthier lives, Stevenson said.

For more information on the study, call Vivienne Spauls at (804) 924-8185 or toll-free at (888) 427-4769, or connect to the study's website at www.med.virginia.edu/~mon-grow/.

February 9, 1998