St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children Improves Outcomes For Partially-Paralyzed Children

St. Mary’s Receives Quality of Life Grant from Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation

“Getting a “high 5” has never been more meaningful,” exclaims Paul Berger-Gross, PhD, referring to a young boy who was unable to lift his arm just weeks earlier. Berger-Gross is head of the Constraint Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) Program at St. Mary’s, an innovative therapy that helps children with hemiplegia (partial-paralysis of one side of the body) regain strength and mobility in the affected extremity.

CIMT is a proven treatment that can restore everyday functioning to arms, hands, and fingers in children with brain injury and neurological conditions such as Cerebral Palsy. The 2010 Quality of Life Grant by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation will help fund St. Mary’s summer CIMT program, Camp Helping Hands, which attracts families from as far away as Israel. This marks the third gift St. Mary’s has received from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation in support of CIMT.

“St. Mary’s is proud of the incredible work we do to improve the health and quality of life for our children and families,” remarked Burton Grebin, MD, St. Mary’s president and CEO. “We are grateful to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation for its ongoing support and commitment to our programs.”

“The Quality of Life program recognizes and supports organizations that assist individuals living with paralysis, their families and caregivers in ways that more immediately provide them with increased independence, well being, and improved access,” said Peter T. Wilderotter, president and CEO of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. “As Dana Reeve used to say, ‘our Quality of Life program is about freedom’ and we are pleased to do our small part to assist St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children in fulfilling its mission.”

About the Reeve Foundation
The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation is dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by funding innovative research, and improving the quality of life for people living with paralysis through grants, information and advocacy. The Reeve Foundation awarded 86 grants this year totaling almost $500,000 to nonprofit organizations nationwide that help people living with paralysis and their families become more integrated members of society. Since inception of the program in 1999, nearly 1,600 grants have been awarded, totaling almost $13 million. For more information, and to review the entire list of Quality of Life grant recipients, please visit www.ChristopherReeve.org or call 800-225-0292.