Under 25’s

In managing cerebral palsy in children and young people from birth up to their 25th birthday, it is important that the care and treatment available is able to meet the needs of both the developmental and clinical comorbidities associated with cerebral palsy, so that they can be as active and independent as possible.    Parents or carers have a central role in decision-making and care planning.

Recognising the importance of early intervention to improve the communication skills of children and young people with cerebral palsy and the importance to offer interventions that can improve speech intelligibility, for example targeting posture, breath control, voice production and rate of speech, to children and young people with cerebral palsy:.

It can be useful to consider use of augmentative and alternative communication systems for children and young people with cerebral palsy who need support in understanding and producing speech. These may include pictures, objects, symbols and signs, and speech generating devices which are available in the My QoL software.

Over 25’s

Interventions that improve function and participation for adults aged 25 and over with cerebral palsy:

  • physical therapy programmes (such as sporting activity, strengthening programmes or training, task-oriented upper limb training)
  • augmentative and alternative communication systems
  • electronic assistive technology

Our software has armchair exercise programmes to complement the other activities contained in the programmes.

The work at Lincolnshire House which is a residential and day care centre for individuals with Cerebral Palsy and other similar disabilities have previously worked with computers to help with writing and accessing the internet.  However, for individuals with no or limited literacy skills, this offering had a very restricted use.  It also required additional staffing resource to support the use.  The My QoL software could be operated by anyone with basic hand/eye coordination.   Individuals found it very easy to use and navigate around the system.