Our Services

Spasticity and Movement Disorders Clinic

The Spasticity and Movement Disorder Clinic at Children’s Hospital treats children and young adults with spasticity—the involuntary muscle tightness and stiffness related to cerebral palsy or head trauma. Other movement disorders treated in the clinic include dystonia, athetosis, chorea and tremor. Beginning in 1986, Children’s was one of the first hospitals in the country to perform spasticity reduction procedures.

Research in spasticity and movement disorders has been promising in recent years, and the faculty and staff at Children’s Hospital is at the forefront of this investigation. For example, the Spasticity and Movement Disorder Clinic at Children’s Hospital was the first site in the United States approved by the Food and Drug Administration to study intrathecal baclofen therapy— a procedure where baclofen (a drug that helps to reduce spasticity) is distributed into spinal fluid by a pump the size of a hockey puck, which is surgically inserted into the patient’s abdomen.

Children’s Hospital is also the site where deep brain stimulation was first used in children who experienced tremors related to cerebral palsy or head injury. Deep brain stimulation occurs through an electrode inserted deep into the patient’s thalamus. Stimulation is controlled by both the patient and physician and has been shown to significantly reduce tremors. Due to the success of clinical investigations such as intrathecal baclofen therapy and deep brain stimulation, many children who live with spasticity related to cerebral palsy and other movement disorders have experienced a dramatic improvement in the quality of their lives.

In addition, children from around the country and the world are referred to Children’s Hospital’s Spasticity and Movement Disorders Clinic. The staff at the clinic are routinely invited to lecture all over the world, and once each month, physicians and therapists from other regions visit to learn how the clinic functions.

To make a referral or to determine eligibility for treatment, please call 412-692-7181 or e-mail Belinda.Rosing@chp.edu.

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Last Update
April 15, 2010

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