Action Planning and Execution Deficits in Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy

2017

Wayne Stuberg
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402-559-5720

The primary purpose of this investigation was to describe and quantify action-planning deficits during goal-directed movements in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (HCP). Three specific topics were addressed: brain activation, kinematics, and the use of visual input. First, we assessed prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation during complex goal-directed actions in children with HCP. The outcome suggested that children with HCP have higher PFC activation than age matched typically developing (TD) children during action planning, potentially due to the difficulty in allocating attentional resources for simultaneously processing the cognitive (i.e., attention, memory, information processing) and motor demands of the goal-directed task. Reduced task performance paralleled the increased cortical activation.

Doctoral Dissertation or Master's Thesis

Professionals

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N/A