The Newington brace for cerebral palsy.

As a form of treatment in cerebral palsy, bracing has yet to meet universal acceptance. 2 , 5 , 6 Besides published opinions slighting the value of braces, in practice one frequently encounters a prejudice against prescribing them in "spastic" disease. This attitude, it must be granted, is not groundless. Phelps, 4 a proponent of braces, refers to the danger of aggravating spasticity with braces of poor design. Our own experience has taught us that attempts to brace spastic muscles in correction beyond tolerance succeed only in alienating the patient and frustrating the doctor. Design problems and the simple difficulty of knowing where to lay one's hands on a mechanically sound brace have also militated against full recognition of the value of braces in cerebral palsy. Often the mechanical requirements for effective bracing in a spastic or an athetoid patient are such as to tax the ingenuity of bracemaker and orthopaedist alike.