Upper Limb Interventions And Outcomes In Paediatric Spinal Cord Injury
Dr MJ Mulcahey
Ph.D, OTR/L, CLCP, FASIA
Dr. Mulcahey is a licensed occupational therapist with over 30 years of experience as a clinician-scientist in pediatric rehabilitation. After obtaining her occupational therapy degree, MJ practiced as an occupational therapy clinician and researcher for over 20 years at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia. Her practice area was with families and children with spinal cord injuries, brachial plexus birth injuries, cerebral palsy, limb loss, and other neurologic and musculoskeletal conditions.
During her tenure at Shriners, MJ pursued a PhD and advanced training in measurement and outcomes assessment. As part of the Shriners team, she developed the Pediatric Spinal Cord Injury Data Set for longitudinal assessment of pediatric SCI. She led a multi-center study that established guidelines for evaluating the neurological consequence of spinal cord injuries in children, which have been adopted globally. MJ has also conducted pediatric spinal cord injury research on the outcomes of upper extremity reconstruction and percutaneous and implanted functional electrical stimulation. Over the last decade, MJ has focused her research on developing and validating IRT-derived clinical outcome assessments, including the Pediatric SCI Measure and the Pediatric Measure of Participation.
Dr. Mulcahey has received numerous awards for her work in pediatric spinal cord injury including the Clinical Excellence Award from the American Paraplegia Society, Comarr Memorial Award for Distinguished Clinical Service from the Academy of SCI Professionals, American Spinal Injury Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Lecture and Plenary from the International Spinal Cord Society. Currently, she is a tenured Professor of Occupational Therapy, Director of the Center for Outcomes and Measurement and Interim Associate Dean of Research in Jefferson College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, USA.