Introduction
Joanne Bundonis, the writer of the article, started by recalling her experiences when she was a new physical therapist in 1997. It was during that particular time that she encountered the first clients suffering from cerebral palsy and realized that she had initially developed a misconception of the effect of the condition. She narrated a story of Jessy, a 4-year-old girl who was suffering from athetoid cerebral palsy and Adam, a 5-year-old boy with the same condition but different manifestations. These two experiences completely changed her perception and knowledge of athetoid cerebral palsy. She is a senior physical therapist at 1st Cerebral Palsy of New Jersey in Belleville.
In this article review, I give a summary of the content of Bundonis’ article and comment on the relevance of the article as far as the subject is concerned. The summary will highlight the definitions of athetoid cerebral palsy, treatment goals, and finally the treatment interventions as brought out in the article.
Article Summary
Bundonis started by emphasizing the need to understand the nature of the disease in question before issues of the treatment program as well as prognosis could be raised. In her article, she defined athetosis as a condition that is caused by damaged basal ganglia and thalamus in the putamen. This part of the brain regulates the timing and initiation of body movement. She also captured the possible causes of the damage as due to hypoxic cases, perinatal problems as well as severe jaundice. Bundonis went ahead and offered a description of the characteristics exhibited by athetoid patients especially children. She noted at that particular time that it was difficult to identify athetoid components of cerebral palsy among the newborn children except after about a year.
The author of the article then discussed the treatment goals for athetoid patients after the condition had been clearly defined. The primary goal of treatment identified by Bundonis was to help the patients coordinate their body movements. She pointed out that the type of treatment goal depended on the nature of athetoid cerebral palsy. In the next section, the author discussed the treatment interventions for the condition. In her elaborate description, Bundonis stressed the need to involve the clients in the development of treatment planning if treatment intervention strategies are to be prioritized by the patient. Patient-centered approaches to treatment were emphasized by the author. She concluded by noting the significant progress made by her first clients after being with them for seven years then.
Critical Reflections on the Article
The primary objective of this article seems to be to bring out the need to have a clear understanding of any medical condition, especially athetoid cerebral palsy. The author implied that one should not rely solely on theoretical knowledge to understand any given condition but seek to practically engage a client with the said medical condition. Although the author provides extensive coverage of the definition and understanding of the nature of athetoid cerebral palsy, she fails to cite the sources from which her statements are based. It is not enough for her to just claim that research findings reveal and yet in-text citation is not provided for the reader to do an independent follow up. The author should have quoted the sources of her information even if she was an authority in the field. Nonetheless, the content of her article is a source of critical information for anyone seeking to understand athetoid cerebral palsy, especially among children. Therefore, further research into the field to explore newer insights about the same need to be conducted.
Conclusion
The paper has summarized the content of the article by Joanne Bundonis. Her experiences with athetoid cerebral palsy have been captured. The treatment goals and treatment interventions as brought out in the article have been highlighted. A critical evaluation of the same has been done. It can be concluded that Bundonis’ article is a good source for understanding arthetoid cerebral palsy and further research has to be done to get newer insights about this condition.
Work cited
Bundonis, Joanne. “Understanding Cerebral Palsy: Definition, treatment goals, planning and case examples.” 2004, 15 (9): 53