Katharine E. Alter MD

Katharine E. Alter, MD, is a Pediatric and Adult Physiatrist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Maryland where she is a Senior Research Clinician and serves as the Medical Director of the Functional and Applied Biomechanics Section within Rehabilitation Medicine. Prior to joining NIH full time in 2014 Dr. Alter worked at NIH part-time while she remained in clinical practice in the Washington DC region of the USA. In her clinical practice Dr. Alter served as the Medical Director of Rehabilitation Medicine at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital (1998-2014), an affiliate of Johns Hopkin’s and the University of Maryland and as a staff physiatrist at National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington DC (1989-1998). She continues to serve in a clinical role at MWPH as a senior physiatrist focusing on the treatment of muscle hypertonia and related disorders.

Dr. Alter’s clinical and investigative interests include the assessment and treatment of neurological and musculoskeletal impairments in children and adults including movement disorders, dystonia, cerebral palsy, stroke, muscle hypertonia, neuromuscular disorders, brachial plexus palsy, patellofemoral pain and other conditions affecting children and adults. Dr. Alter is a co-investigator on numerous studies at NIH including projects investigating musculoskeletal and neuromuscular ultrasound, botulinum toxin therapies, non-invasive functional brain imaging and gene therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.