Playing Sports with Cerebral Palsy

It was a phone call that every parent dreads. Claudia’s son, Camillo, had suffered an accident while at daycare. 

He was seated on a toy stool. Suddenly, mysteriously, he collapsed. Claudia was at work when she got the call. She dropped everything and drove to the daycare. As soon as she saw her son, she knew something was wrong. They rushed him to the Emergency Room at Texas Children’s Hospital.   

“It was terrifying,” Claudia remembers. “Camillo was just a baby. At the ER, he fell asleep. When he woke up, his face was drooping, and his right side seemed to be paralyzed. They decided to do an MRI.”

Doctors broke the news that Camillo had suffered a stroke.

“They took him directly to the Intensive Care Unit,” said Claudia. “He had bleeding in his brain, and they had to keep him in the ICU for ten days or so. Those were the worst ten days of my life.”

Claudia is an International Business Development Specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital, and she knew her son was in good hands. “I felt grateful to be part of the team at Texas Children’s. I have been working here for 27 years. As a mother, it was very comforting to know that Camillo was being seen by our doctors, by Texas Children’s doctors, who are the very best doctors in the nation.”

Although Texas Children’s saved Camillo’s life, the stroke caused damage to his developing brain.

Eventually, Camillo was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

What is cerebral palsy? 

Cerebral palsy is a broad term for a group of conditions that affect muscle tone, movement and posture. Typically, cerebral palsy is caused by damage that occurs to the developing brain — most often before birth. Cerebral palsy has a wide range of clinical severity with some children having only mild coordination, strength or tone difficulties while others have significant deficits and limitations.

What are the symptoms of cerebral palsy? 

Symptoms of cerebral palsy vary greatly from person to person and can include:

• Poor coordination
• Unsteady gait
• Tremors
• Stiff or weak muscles
• Exaggerated reflexes
• Involuntary motions
• Abnormal movements of the hands, feet, arms, or legs
• Intellectual disability
• Seizures
• Problems with vision, hearing or speech
• Changes in the spine 
• Joint problems 

While there's no cure, treatments can help improve motor skills and communication abilities. There are several types of cerebral palsy, including spastic, dyskinetic, ataxic, hypotonic and mixed. 

The three main types are:

• Spastic: muscle tightness and spasms
• Dyskinetic: issues with muscle control
• Mixed: features of both the spastic and dyskinetic types 

Playing sports with cerebral palsy

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Fourteen-year-old boy improves athletic abilities at the Texas Children’s Motion Analysis and Human Performance Laboratory and pursues dream of one day competing in the Paralympic Games.

Camillo is now 14 years old. “Honestly, when I hear about what happened to me, I’m just grateful to be alive,” he said. “I’m happy that I can still walk and do some of the normal things that other people can do. And I’m so grateful for everything that Texas Children’s has done to help me.”

Thanks to his physicians, therapists, biomechanists and exercise physiologists at the Texas Children’s Motion Analysis and Human Performance Laboratory, Camillo can do much more than walk. 

He is a talented athlete who plays more than six sports competitively. 

“I play football, basketball, track and field, tennis, soccer and swimming,” said Camillo. “In football, I’m a kicker and defensive end. And I run the 100 and 200-meter races in track and field.”

Motion Analysis and Human Performance Laboratory

The Texas Children’s Motion Analysis and Human Performance Laboratory, where Camillo is a patient, is a major part of the hospital’s nationally-ranked Orthopedics program and one of the only pediatric labs of its kind in the state. It is a hallmark feature of Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands, a 548,000-square-foot full-service pediatric hospital. 

Leveraging the expertise of a multidisciplinary team of physicians, therapists, biomechanists and exercise physiologists — along with state-of-the-art computer and sensor technology — the Motion Analysis and Human Performance Laboratory studies, analyzes and helps improve how the human body moves. The laboratory is equipped with a 3D motion capture system, force platforms, a force plate instrumented treadmill, an electromyography system and a metabolic cart.

One lab. Two tracks.

The Motion Analysis and Human Performance Laboratory serves two different patient groups with two different clinical focuses.

Patients who have been referred for Clinical Gait Analysis typically have a movement disorder or underlying medical condition, like Camillo’s, affecting their ability to walk. Clinical gait analysis is used to inform decisions about surgical interventions and/or the need for braces/prosthetic devices to address these movement-related issues. Patients with a variety of neuromuscular or musculoskeletal conditions including cerebral palsy, spina bifida, brain or spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophies, hip and joint problems or balance disorders come for Clinical Gait Analysis.

Patients who have been referred for Sports Performance are typically athletes with injuries or issues related to athletic performance or specific functions, such as running or throwing. Physical therapists and sports medicine physicians use a wide range of functional and diagnostic assessments to inform the athlete’s training and recovery regimens.

“At the lab, Texas Children’s is helping to strengthen my right leg — we’re doing a lot of leg presses, squats and jumping,” said Camillo. “Because of my condition, my right side will never be as strong as my left side, but they are helping me compensate for my disability and do better at sports.”

Paralympic dreams

“One of my main goals for the future is to get to the point where I can compete in the Paralympics,” said Camillo. “That’s the great thing about the lab at Texas Children’s — the doctors really care about me, and they want to make my life better and to help me pursue my dreams.” 

When asked what advice he would give to other patients who are facing similar challenges, Camillo says, “Never give up on what you want to do in life and keep working hard, because eventually it will pay off. I want to encourage people not to give up on their dreams. My dream is to compete in the Paralympics, partly because it could help me inspire other people with disabilities like mine. And thanks to my doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital, I can say that it’s possible.”

Learn more about the nationally-ranked Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Program at Texas Children’s Hospital and the Motion Analysis and Human Performance Laboratory. 

To schedule an appointment, call 832-822-2778.