Václav Vojta

Václav Vojta (1917 to 2000) was a Czech medical doctor who specialized in treating children with cerebral palsy and developmental disorders. He began studies in Prague in 1937, delayed by the Nazi occupation, took his doctorate in 1947 and trained in pediatric neurology at Charles University, where he became head of the pediatric neurology department in 1956. After the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia he left for Germany, working in Cologne and then Munich, and returned to a professorship in Prague in 1989. He is known for discovering reflex locomotion, the basis of the Vojta Method, in which pressure on specific zones of the body provokes reflexive movement patterns that can improve posture, gait and speech. He wrote over one hundred scientific works, founded the Vojta Society in 1984 and received several German medical awards and the Czech Medal of Merit in 2000.