Part of what makes cerebral palsy so complicated is that it s a neuromuscular problem resulting from an injury to the brain, often before birth. So while these children are born with normal bones and muscles, the connection between their brains and their bodies is broken, causing poor overall balance, an inability to control certain muscles and poor coordination of muscle groups. A big part of the challenge in treating cerebral palsy is that a physician can t tell what s wrong just by looking at a child with the disease. In fact, according to Gage, two children who look the same, walk the same and test the same upon examination may have different outcomes to the same surgical procedure. It was like a heart surgeon trying to operate with a stethoscope.
Chances are they wouldn t get it right.
For Gage, operating on chance wasn t good enough. Through his schooling at Calvin College, followed by four years at Northwestern Medical College and 10 years as a practicing physician and surgeon, he had learned to challenge the status quo. When he joined the Newington Children s Hospital staff in Connecticut in 1976 and was promoted to director of the cerebral palsy service in 1978, it was apparent to him that they needed a different approach. The treatment of cerebral palsy at that time was an art, not a science. The need for a more scientific approach led Gage to California to study the work of University of California researcher Verne T. Inman.