150 Kilgour Road, Toronto Ontario Canada M4G 1R8
Tel: 416 425 6220 Toll Free: 800 363 2440
A teaching hospital fully affiliated with the University of Toronto
Copyright © Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. 2011. All Rights Reserved.
Resource Centre
Cerebral Palsy Glossary
Alternative Therapy: Therapy that is outside of the scope of traditional medical practice
Ambulatory Care Nurse: The nurse who you will meet when you first come to Holland Bloorview. They are professionals with a variety of skills and will be your primary contact. The nurses take a family-centred approach to support you within Holland Bloorview and the community.
Ankle-Foot-Orthotic: A plastic brace that is molded to the shape of your child’s foot. It helps maintain a stretch on tight muscles and helps to maintain a normal foot position.
Ataxia: Disorder of movement that results in instability in walking
Athetosis: A condition where there are slow, irregular or twisting movements usually in arms, hands or fingers.
Audiologist: Professional who assesses hearing
Cerebellum: Structure at the back of the brain, which is often considered to be the “control centre” for movement.
Commando Crawl: Commando crawling refers to moving on one’s stomach by pulling along with the arms, without much movement in the legs, in other words like an army commando crawling under a wire.
Complementary Therapy: Complementary therapy is used in conjunction with traditional medical therapy. It may include such things as therapeutic horseback riding or sensory integration therapy.
Constipation: This means that children are not having regular, soft bowel movements. Frequency of normal bowel movements can vary from child to child but most typically developing children will have at least one bowel movement per day.
Developmental Pediatrician: A developmental pediatrician is a pediatrician who has completed specialized training in child development. They will collect detailed information and do a physical examination to make a diagnosis. Sometimes they will complete additional tests to assess specific aspects of development.
Dystonia: Refers to muscles that have variability in tone. Children usually have some uncontrolled movements.
Epilepsy: A condition where an individual has seizures regularly.
Extra Pyramidal Cerebral Palsy: Cerebral palsy that is predominately a movement disorder as opposed to spasticity.
Fine Motor Skills: Refers to movements of the hand and arm, such as eating,dressing and printing.
Gastro-esophageal Reflux Disease (GERD): This refers to liquid and/or food that is in the stomach moving back up to into the esophagus. Many young children experience this, but when a child has cerebral palsy and their muscles don’t function normally, and refl ux can be severe. Some symptoms include pain, irritability and vomiting.
Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS): Used to describe the severity of cerebral palsy.
Gross Motor Skills: Refers to large movements such as rolling, sitting, crawling, standing and walking.
G-tube: A g-tube is a gastrostomy tube. This is inserted by a surgeon or radiologist by making a small incision in the skin and stomach lining and placing a tube within the stomach. It is used for children who are unable to manage pureed food, or who are having trouble taking in enough calories to maintain their weight.
Motor Cortex: Refers to the area in the brain that is responsible for movement.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): A MRI machine is a large magnetic tube. The patient goes inside that tube and the magnetic forces in their brain are measured, and turned into a picture.
Occupational Therapist (OT): A professional trained in helping clients achieve maximal functional independence, and often focuses on hand function, and the equipment needs of your child.
Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS): PECS refers to a series of cards, which can be used in place of spoken language to request items and activities.
Physiotherapist (PT): A professional trained in helping clients achieve maximal mobility.
Pneumonia: A lung infection that often requires hospitalization
Prematurity: Refers to infants who are born before 37 weeks gestational age
Psychologist: A professional trained in assessing children’s thinking or cognitive skills.
Seizure: A seizure is an electrical discharge in the brain that causes the nerve cells to fire too quickly. This can result in loss of consciousness and shaking of the arms and legs. However, sometimes seizures are subtle and will result in loss of control of only certain muscles, staring spells or changes in heart rate.
Snoezelen Room: The Snoezelen Room is a room that provides stimulation via lights, sounds, music and textures.
Social Worker: A professional with a broad range of skills and can help you and your family cope with the challenges of having a child with a disability and provide links to financial and community programs.
Spasticity: Refers to “tightness” in the muscles.
Speech Language Pathologist: is a professional who is trained to assist in speech production, and language skills. This may be verbal or non-verbal (pictures, computers, signs)
Sublux: Subluxation refers to the gradual movement of the head of the femur (top of the leg) within the hip socket. When children have very tight muscles, and are not weight bearing, this can change the forces at work on the hip and cause the hip to gradually move out of the socket.