statistics

Visitors keep coming!

Gillian Maguire Leave a comment

Since the announcement of the new home for this blog after www.gillian-maguire.info being hacked,  I have been keeping track of the visitor numbers.

When the blog went live the counter read 114,766 (this total was transferred from the old location) and now reads 118,423 which means there have been 3,657 page hits since 15 January.

This is a real surprise and makes me think it was worth spending a lot of time over the past two weeks transferring 340 posts across from the old location.

So please do give me feedback on future (and past) posts.

Cerebral palsy numbers declining?

Gillian Maguire Leave a comment
I have seen a number of reports on the Internet stating that  cerebral palsy numbers are on the decline and this suggests improvement in quality of perinatal care.  These are highlighting the results of a study carried out in the Netherlands which will appear in the Journal of Pediatrics. The jornal website states:

Because cerebral palsy is a result of brain injury received shortly before, during, or soon after birth, the number of infants being diagnosed with the condition is a good indicator of the quality of perinatal and neonatal care. An article soon to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics indicates that the rates of cerebral palsy have declined dramatically in the past 15 years.

For more information go to

 This study by researchers in the Netherlands  has been reported  quite widely  e.g.

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20110303/Rates-of-cerebral-palsy-decline-among-children-born-prematurely.aspx
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2011/03/04/cerebral-palsy-decline/12494/

http://esciencenews.com/sources/science.daily/2011/03/05/decline.cerebral.palsy.diagnoses.premature.infants.suggests.improvements.perinatal.care

Perhaps it would be wise to wait until a closer look at the study and its findings is possible when the article is published in the March issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, but any improvement in  medical care  that produces such results,  certainly has to be good news.

‘Making the statistic’ in Conductive Education

Gillian Maguire Leave a comment
I have received an enquiry asking where statistics on the number of children with cerebral palsy receiving/received Conductive Education can be found. Well, as far as I know there are none. Individual providers may well keep their own for administrative purposes and to include them in Annual Reports, but these are not made available in an obvious public way or collated by anyone.

The Peto Institute did produce some statistics quite a while ago, a copy of which is in the National Conductive Education Library, and Maria Hari often talked about ‘making the statistic’, including them in her early presentations. These, of course, are now way out of date.

I referred the enquirer to the National Library of Conductive Education where it may be possible to find some figures in student dissertations, conference proceedings or research articles. Quite a time consuming process.

How useful they can be, I am not sure, but if anyone is willing to send me any figures they know of, I will try and produce an overall picture and put it on this blog.