Some of the muscles are turned on all the time, while others never fire. Staff members tape electrodes, made by Utah-based Iomed, onto a child to check out the electrical signals that are sent when a muscle fires. Of those young patients, nearly 80 percent have gait problems connected with cerebral palsy. More than 300 children have similar studies at the hospital each year. That information wasĬombined with data from other tests and fed into a computer program that helps doctors decide the best way to correct how a child walks or runs.
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Much of the mystery of why this boy walked with an unusual gait was solved by a foot study that measured areas of high and low pressure as he propelled himself, one foot at a time, across a series of four force plates, manufactured by AMTI. Such analysis is often needed in order to correct mobility problems. It's part of a comprehensive examination of movement that includes range of motion, strength, limb alignment and a look at how individual muscles fire, according to Bruce MacWilliams, a Ph.D. The Denver Children's Hospital has the only similar lab in the Intermountain region.īefore the staff here finished testing him, the boy looked a little like a Christmas tree, all lit up as he moved across the floor.
That quest for information brought the child to the Movement Analysis Lab at Shriners Hospital for Children in Salt Lake City. Orthopedic surgeons hoped to correct his awkward gait, but first they had to determine exactly what was going on with his legs. In the video, now used for training, the 9-year-old boy walks with a stiff right knee, one of the results of the cerebral palsy with which he was born.
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