How magic tricks help children with cerebral palsy

For children with hemiplegia, a common form of cerebral palsy, learning to be a magician is remarkably effective therapy as attendees at the Breathe Magic summer camp find out

A girl bends over a £20 note, concentrating. Her long hair falls forward. She is trying to fold the note into three, and hook paperclips over the folds. The fingernails of her left hand are painted pink, the right hand blue a clue that she sees each differently? She spreads the fingers of the blue hand; a disciplinary gesture. She is trying to stretch them into obedience. Then she angles the fingers downwards into a grip, to hold the note steady. The pink ones painstakingly attach the clips as the note bobs waywardly in the blue.

Nancy is eight, and she has come to Guy's hospital in London for Breathe Magic, a summer camp with a difference. For one thing, all the tablecloths are made of red velvet. For two weeks, Nancy and her colleagues will learn and practise tricks before performing at the Magic Circle theatre. The children have hemiplegia, a common form of cerebral palsy that affects muscle control in one half of the body. Some walk with a limp. Some wear calipers (Nancy's pair is leopard print). Most have one hand locked in a position of permanent insubordination a thumb trapped inside the curl of a palm, fingers clenched into a fist, a wrist that refuses to turn.

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