This book is a practical resource for physiotherapists and occupational therapists who support people with cerebral palsy, helping them to solve the problems with movement and other impairments that so often accompany cerebral palsy, so that they can be more active and better able to participate in roles such as study, work, recreation and relationships. The first chapters provide the background to the clinical reasoning approach that informs the whole text, as well as an overview of therapeutic interventions. The subsequent chapters present clinical situations that therapists will encounter in the course of their work with individuals with cerebral palsy across the lifespan. Each chapter describes a case in detail, including the reasoning behind assessment and treatment choices, interventions and outcomes.

The themes emphasized throughout the book are the use of the clinical reasoning approach of the intervention process model, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a framework to help therapists inform patient and family decision-making, family-centred approaches in developing and implementing therapeutic strategies, and multidisciplinary team work.

Karen Dodd is known for her research into the effects of therapeutic exercise for people with chronic disabilities, particularly neurological disabilities. She has published and presented extensively on this topic. She co-produced with Nick Taylor an innovative instructional DVD on strength training for people with cerebral palsy that won the Fred P. Sage award for the best audiovisual product at the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine 60th Annual Meeting.

Neurological disorders in children are common: families want to know what is wrong, why it happened, and whether it will happen again. Management and treatment depend on establishing the diagnosis, which usually requires investigations, but the number of possible neurological investigations is now very large indeed, and uncritical investigations may be seriously misleading and often costly. This book, based on the authors' vast combined personal experience, gives practical guidance on how to target any specific condition with the minimum of tests. Part 1 is a brief distillation of advice on clinical history and examination, introducing the problems that beset those who deal with neurological disorders in childhood. Part 2 outlines the investigations available to solve these diagnostic problems. Part 3 takes a problem-oriented approach to the most appropriate investigations in the various clinical scenarios that may present to the practitioner: the starting point is the patient's presentation, not the diagnosis. Throughout, vignettes of real cases help to illustrate the use of the tests in different clinical situations. The authors co-wrote the hugely popular Handbook of Neurological Investigations ("the Blue Book") 20 years ago. This new book, while closely following the highly successful approach of the earlier title, is thoroughly up to date, with fresh material, new case vignettes, and additional investigations covered.