Dr. James Klausner: Conductive Education

September 12th, 2012
By Danielle Torrent
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James Klausner wasn’t looking for an additional career when he decided to start a rehabilitation program for kids with Cerebral Palsy. He already was quite busy with his day job as a lecturer at University of Florida and a physicist. It would be enough to nominate him for the Spirit of Gainesville award for his work as a professor. But he wanted to help kids in Gainesville, kids just like his son, who passed away at age six. He wanted to make them mobile, more independent, educated and accomplished. Hopefully, he would help them walk. In 2006 he started The Gainesville Conductive Education Academy. With a program modeled after the world famous Peto method, James Klausner took on a second day job without pay. He never turned a child away and as the head of The Jordan Klausner Foundation created in his son’s memory he tried with all his might to balance his need to help the local community with ever limiting funding to keep the facility running. Conductive Education is a method very little known in America, but quite popular worldwide, especially in the 1980′s. It doesn’t enjoy the financial support of insurance or the recognition of the US medical community. Conductive Education was developed in Hungary in the 1940′s. The theory behind was that people with neuromuscular disabilities can learn and improve through routines, movement and repetition. James wanted for the parents in Gainesville to have it as an option, to have the information and then make choices. He created an Academy that was free for most, affordable for the rest and he persuaded a Hungarian conductor, Kata to join his cause.

Dr. James Klausner

25 years ago I was just like the kids James Klausner has helped in Gainesville. I know what it did for me. I know what it’s like to fight with limitations of your own body only to raise above it and get better. Today I’m an attorney. Cerebral Palsy never goes away, of course I can see, but you can limit the way it affects you. That’s what James Klausner tried to do, against the odds, by bringing the approach that helped countless kids to Gainesville. To give them the gift of mobility. And also to start the discussion about the education and therapy choices in America and how we view Cerebral Palsy today. He didn’t make CE widespread, but he got his foot through the door.

This is our last chance to honor Dr Klausner’s efforts. After years of struggles the school has shut down this year. I know it was not an easy decision for him. It’s not that Cerebral Palsy is no longer a concern in Gainesville, but the logistics, the finances, the economic crisis we all live in, finally became too much for this one person, who tried to make a difference. He sacrificed a lot of personal time, energy and money. He thought of others first.

Last year I was nominated for the Spirit of Gainesville award, for my work with the school. But James is the true champion of Conductive Education. I’m just a success story. He has inspired me to help others like me. At the school little miracles happened daily. Yet, the media mostly ignored him. This is our chance to correct it. The school has closed but his efforts were not a failure. Not to his students, his other students, those who now walk, speak and move. Not to me, as I build by career around disability law issues and all the others he has touched. The school has closed, but the Foundation will continue, James assured me. For Jordan and for other kids in Gainesville.

Second Nomination

By day, James Klausner plays the role of what many people would call a rocket scientist. A professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Florida, his research in thermal fluid sciences has landed him positions on panels for NASA and the National Science Foundation, and resulted in numerous awards and recognitions for his theoretical and experimental work on heat flow transfer. But the rest of the time, Klausner is focused on improving the lives of children with neuromuscular disabilities in Gainesville and surrounding areas.

In 1999, he established the Jordan Klausner Foundation in memory of his son, Jordan, who was afflicted with cerebral palsy. The foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit run primarily by volunteers that offers a range of services to the disabled community in North Central Florida, including educational opportunities for children, advocacy and legal services. It is mainly supported by parents and relies on grants, donations and McKay scholarships for funding. In 2006, Klausner opened the Gainesville Conductive Education Academy, a Florida charter school that combines rehabilitation and education to help children become more functional and independent. The key to Conductive Education is having children follow carefully designed scripts of exercises to make them stand, move and walk with the use of specially designed furniture that also serve as rehabilitation tools. The facility applies the therapy method developed in Hungary in the 1940s by Andras Peto. Over the decades, Peto’s Institute in Budapest has become a popular destination for Cerebral Palsy parents from all around the world, with many witnessing great progress in their children’s walking, talking and other functionality skills. The Gainesville Conductive Education Academy’s instructor, Katalin Szcoboda, received training for this method in Hungary. The school’s goal – unlike the outcome of many public schools, which results in disabled children becoming dependent on wheelchairs and classroom aides – is for children to become as independent and as functional as they can be. The Jordan Klausner Foundation’s motto states: “Helping special children help themselves.” The school operates year-round, providing otherwise unavailable educational options for North Central Florida’s population of children with disabilities and their families, with the ultimate goal of incorporating students into the public school system. Students have commuted from Orlando and as far north as Georgia to participate in the academy’s summer camp, as there are no other Conductive Education facilities available in the area.

Cerebral Palsy is an umbrella term for a number of neuro-motor disorders involving brain injury at birth or during pregnancy. An estimated two-to-three live births per thousand are diagnosed with the condition, with some studies suggesting raised rates in recent years. It affects children in all countries and all social groups. The condition mostly affects walking, control over limbs, balance and speech and in most cases, renders the body spastic. James Klauser has devoted an immeasurable amount of time and personal sacrifice to get the foundation and school off the ground, organizing fundraising events, applying for Federal grants and ensuring the students have a safe, welcoming facility to attend. He is committed to helping kids in the community and building a sustainable organization that will be able to help generations of families. For more information, please visit www.jordanklausnerfoundation.org.

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Treatment has Potential to Reverse Cerebral Palsy

August 21st, 2012
From Norbert Herzog and David NieselSign up for our weekly newsletter!

A child’s symptoms can start with a weak or shrill cry, which seems normal enough. But then other problems appear, such as not being able to swallow or suck properly and having an overly floppy or stiff body.

These are early signs of a group of disorders called cerebral palsy, which is the No. 1 cause of motor disability in American children and affects more than 11,000 kids every year.

Doctors treat the lifelong symptoms with physical therapy and drugs, but are unable to reverse the brain damage, which happens in the womb for most cerebral palsy children.

Now, a study using a nanoparticle has successfully repaired damaged brains in rabbits with cerebral palsy. A research team engineered a particle small enough to deliver anti-inflammatory drugs to overactive neurons in the brain that are killing healthy cells.

Children with cerebral palsy have varying types of brain damage because of genetic mutations, maternal infections that affect fetal brain development, lack of oxygen to the fetus or baby or traumatic brain injury.

In many of these cases, two types of immune cells in the brain become activated — microglia and astrocytes. They protect the brain during infection and inflammation but damage the brain when they go into overdrive, destroying healthy cells.

Controlling neuronal inflammation presents a challenge because most medications can’t get past the blood-brain barrier.

R. Kannan led a group from Johns Hopkins University and Wayne State University that found a solution using a nanoparticle called a dendrimer, which is 2,000 times smaller than a red blood cell.

Kannan’s team affixed a powerful antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties onto the snowflake-shaped particle.

When intravenously injected into newborn rabbits with an induced form of cerebral palsy, the drug-laced dendrimers made their way to the brain and were immediately swallowed by the overactive immune cells.

Within five days of treatment, the rabbits showed significant improvement, exhibiting motor skills similar to healthy rabbits. By comparison, rabbits treated with just the antioxidant, unattached to a dendrimer, showed minimal improvement even though they were given 10 times the amount.

An autopsy revealed the brains of rabbits treated with dendrimers had less scarring, less brain cell death and reduced inflammation.

They also had better preservation of myelin, a protective cover around nerves, which normally is stripped by cerebral palsy and other neurological diseases. This suggests the new treatment has the potential to reverse the disease.

Before human trials can begin, researchers must determine if the nanoparticle in this study is safe for humans, particularly children whose brains are developing.

There’s also the question of how long doctors have before cerebral palsy is irreversible in children. In most cases, cerebral palsy is diagnosed by the age of 2, but if newborns can be diagnosed and treated immediately, Kannan’s therapy might be invaluable to those young lives.

The study’s scientists already anticipate pairing the treatment with stem cell therapy to regenerate damaged nerve tissue in the brain.

Not only would this help newborns with cerebral palsy, but could also help people with other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

Professors Norbert Herzog and David Niesel are biomedical scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Learn more at medicaldiscoverynews.com.

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Girl, 6, with cerebral palsy, to fulfill ballet dream after having life-changing surgery in U.S.

Here is some very encouraging news for those suffering with Spastic Cerebral Palsy.  Doctors in St.Louis Missouri have successfully performed a life changing surgery on a 6 year old girl with CP.  I can't wait to track her progress and hopefully watch her as she fulfills her dream of being a ballet dancer.

http://bit.ly/cerebralpalsysurgery