Early home-based upper limb interventions for infants and toddlers with CP

Many children with unilateral cerebral palsy use their affected arm and hand less than they could based on their capacities. This difference between performance and capacities can potentially be reduced or prevented by starting training of the affected upper limb at a very young age. This study investigates the feasibility and effectiveness of early upper limb interventions in infants and toddlers from the age of 4 months with (high risk of) unilateral cerebral palsy. In this training, parents practice at home with their child and are supported in this by the rehabilitation centre's occupational therapist through remote video coaching, in collaboration with the primary care pediatric physical therapist at home.  

During this project, we will investigate:

• the effectiveness of mCIMT - BiT home training with remote video coaching. 
• parents' experiences with mCIMT-BiT home training with remote video coaching.
• the effectiveness of early upper limb home-based training compared to this intervention with a novel MuSSAP training
• the effectiveness of MuSSAP in clinical practice.

Within this project we cooperate with:

• Dr. Pauline Aarts (Sint Maartenskliniek)
• Em. Prof. Dr. Ria Nijhuis- van der Sanden (Radboud UMC)
• Prof. Dr. Michèl Willemsen (Radboud UMC)