Cerebral palsy is the most common motor disability in children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many children with cerebral palsy have one side of their body weaker than the other side, which impacts mobility, motor skills, and muscle tone. This condition, hemiparesis, results from damage to the developing brain, originating from various conditions including stroke.
Hassan Farah, a Virginia Tech translational biology, medicine, and health (TBMH) graduate student working in the laboratories of Stephanie DeLuca, an associate professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, and Robin Queen, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics in Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering, is studying how children with cerebral palsy balance, walk, and compensate for motor impairments.