What is Cerebral Palsy?
Cerebral palsy is a disorder that is known to affect the movement, muscle tone, and the motor skills. Cerebral palsy can easily lead to several different health problems and other issues like hearing, vision, speech, and can cause learning disabilities for the patient. Cerebral palsy is usually due to brain damage which occurs when a mother is giving birth to the child or during the first 3 to 5 years of life. To this day there is still no known cure for cerebral palsy.
Cerebral palsy is considered as one of the most common forms of congenital disorders. It occurs once in every 500,000 children in the United States alone.
There are three types of Cerebral palsy these includes:
a. Spastic Cerebral Palsy – the symptoms of this CP includes difficulty in muscle movement. It also causes stiffness in the muscles of the patient.
b. Athetoid Cerebral Palsy – a person suffering from this kind of cerebral palsy can have problems in involuntary and uncontrolled movements.
c. Ataxic Cerebral Palsy – patients suffering with ataxic cerebral palsy can cause disturbed balance and depth in perception.
Cerebral Palsy patients will usually have problems with muscle coordination and control. Even simple movements can be very difficult for patients such as standing. Patients suffering from severe cases of cerebral palsy can have problems with important functions like breathing, bowel control, bladder control, eating, and learning. Cerebral palsy does not get worse over time, today, therapy can greatly improve cerebral palsy symptoms.
What are the Causes of Cerebral Palsy?
To this day there is no single cause that can be attributed to cerebral palsy. Experts believe that Cerebral Palsy can be due to different problems during pregnancy that causes the brain to become damage and does not develop normally. Many factors can be attributed to cerebral palsy like infection during pregnancy and unhealthy pregnancy. Moreover, problems encountered during labor and delivery can also cause cerebral palsy.
It is also known that premature babies and those born weighing under 3.3 pounds have high chances in having cerebral palsy that those who have complete term. In addition, brain damage during infancy to early childhood (up to 5 years old) can lead to a child developing cerebral palsy. A child may develop cerebral palsy due to because of different reasons like injury, poisoning, bacterial meningitis, shaken baby syndrome, malnutrition, or other forms of injury to the head.
How is Cerebral Palsy Diagnosed?
Cerebral palsy can be diagnosed very early during infancy. Premature birth, health problems, and genetics all play a role in children later developing symptoms of cerebral palsy. Doctors who recognize these problems in children usually monitor the patient closely so they can address any developing problems as soon as possible.
Cerebral Palsy can be more difficult to recognize for children without the history of developing this problem. Doctors will usually wait up to the first year of life and see if the child has delayed motor development.
Some of the most common symptoms associated with cerebral palsy include abnormal muscle tone, poorly coordinated muscle movement, uncoordinated muscle and infant reflexes way beyond the age that these movements should have disappeared.
Treatment is still being researched to this day. Most patients suffering with cerebral palsy can be provided with therapy and other methods. This is because there is still no known cure.
Developmental therapy will help the children suffering from cerebral palsy will help patient achieve maximum potential in growth as well as development. This is the reason that as soon as a child is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, you should go to therapy to learn movement, speech, learning, hearing, emotional, and social development.
Cerebral palsy or CP is an abnormality in the function of the motor and postural tone that is obtained at a very early age or even before a child’s birth. The signs and symptoms of this disorder would usually appear in the first year of a child’s life.
This disorder in a human’s motor system is the outcome of non-progressive brain lesions. The motor system of our body gives the ability for us to move and control our movements. A brain lesion is an abnormality of the structure or function of the brain, and a non-progressive brain lesion means that it does not product an ongoing degeneration of our brain. It also indicates that brain lesion is the result of a brain injury that only happens once in a lifetime that will never happen again. Whatever the severity of the brain damage is on a person, it will also determine the extent of the damage that it will pose to them for the rest of their life.
Approximately one to three out of one thousand children that are born are affected with Cerebral palsy. But the condition is more likely to show on premature babies and babies that are born underweight.
There are new treatment procedures that actually succeeded in an enhanced survival rate of premature babies and babies that are underweight. However, these new treatment procedures have not changed the rate of cerebral palsy cases in full term born children and with children that weighs normally.
Why cerebral palsy?
There are several possible causes of cerebral palsy, and the term cerebral palsy does not really indicate its cause or the indication of a child that has the condition.
In cases of cerebral palsy in full term infants, the usual cause of the disorder would relate to the mother’s prenatal condition and is really not related with the things that have happened during the time of the delivery of the baby. In most cases, it is related to the things that have happened during the time of pregnancy of the mother while the fetus is still developing inside their womb.
The most common cause of cerebral palsy is premature birth among babies. The brain of a premature baby is more vulnerable to bleeding, and when the condition is severe enough it can lead to cerebral palsy. Premature babies also have a big chance of developing serious problems in the lungs because of the immature and under developed lungs. This can also lead to instances of lesser oxygen that is delivered to brain which can result to cerebral palsy.
The slow development of the brain in premature babies is called periventricular leukomalacia, this disorder forms holes in the white matter on the brain of a premature baby. The white matter is very essential for the normal transmission of signals that goes throughout the whole brain, and the signals coming from the brain going through the whole body.
In most cases of cerebral palsy, abnormalities in the white matter are observed. And it is very important for people to know that not all the premature babies will suffer from cerebral palsy. There are already new advancements that were made in the field of neonatology or the study of problems that affects newborn children which can increase the chance of survival of premature infants.
Other causes of cerebral palsy would include unwanted accidents that affect the underdeveloped brain, infections on the brain, stroke due to blood clots or abnormal blood vessels and genetic disorders.
Types of Cerebral Palsy
- Spastic cerebral palsy
- Choreoathetoid Cerebral Palsy
- Hypotonic Cerebral Palsy