Word: spasticity
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Sister Kenny believes that the chief symptom of infantile paralysis is spasm (involuntary muscle contraction), which bends joints and stretches the opposing muscles. She thinks the spastic muscles are the diseased ones, begins by treating the spasm, then re-educates the stretched muscles, which she says are merely "alienated," not paralyzed. Her critics' explanation of the disease is almost exactly the opposite...
...This spastic inspiration is not something Pianist Donegan has learned. In fact, she spent a lot of time trying to unlearn it. Dorothy was born on Chicago's dusky South Side, still lives there. Her father is a dining-car chef. When Dorothy was eight, her mother, who had always wanted to play the piano but could never get near enough to one to learn how, decided that, come what may, Dorothy must have lessons. Dorothy got them at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, where she studied classical music for four years. The Conservatory's high-brow teachers...
...epidemic of encephalitis which broke out in 1941 in North Dakota, Minnesota, Manitoba and Saskatchewan the 2,792 cases were mainly among farmers and others who handle horses. About 12% of the victims died. Many others were left with damaged minds and spastic muscles since encephalitis-like poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis)-primarily attacks the nervous system...
Although some of them drool like idiots, spastic children are usually of normal intelligence. Neither medicine nor surgery can cure them. Chief hope for them is to train the healthy fibres of the brain to take over the functions of injured sections. Shining example of such a self-helped spastic is Dr. Earl Reinhold Carlson- of Manhattan's Neurological Institute. Son of Swedish immigrants, iron-willed Dr. Carlson worked his way through the University of Minnesota and Princeton. A group of friends sent him to Yale Medical School. He has started a dozen schools for spastics all over...
Physical training just for "motion's sake" is useless. To develop, muscles must be used for a purpose. Spastic children must be sent to school as soon as possible, must not have their lessons done for them, for they learn only by experience. Writing, or typing, is very important, for muscular movements somehow help to fix facts in the spastic's brain...