Home

_{Jan. 17, 2024}

It’s the ‘thing in my life that shaped me the most,’ participant says of life-changing therapy

Keya Shapiro experienced a stroke in utero that caused weakness on the left side of her body. She was 13 months old when she first met Stephanie DeLuca and Karen Echols. At the time, DeLuca directed a research clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where in collaboration with Echols and Sharon Ramey, the team would develop a unique form of high-intensity pediatric rehabilitation for children and young adults with cerebral palsy and other neuromotor movement disorders called ACQUIRE therapy.  In 2013, DeLuca and Ramey established the Neuromotor Research Clinic at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, where Keya would continue yearly ACQUIRE therapy. “It's probably the most important thing in my life that shaped me the most,” said Shapiro.