Weakness on one side of the body due to cerebral palsy, or hemiparesis, affects the functional ability of an individual during childhood and throughout the lifespan. Using a specific form of stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation or tDCS, brain cells that were inactive due to injury have the potential to become instrumental in function. tDCS is painless, cost-effective, and portable and has shown no evidence of seizure or other serious adverse event. The proposed research combines tDCS with constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) to investigate their benefit on hand function in children with unilateral cerebral palsy.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Bernadette Gillick, PhD, MSPT, PT, Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Program in Physical Therapy Medical School.
gillick@umn.edu

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