Cerebral Palsy Main Page - Symptoms/Treatments/Research/Links
Symptoms Treatments Research Links

  1. Spastic Diplegia:
    1. 1860 - William Little wrote the first medical description. Spastic diplegia struck children in their first years of life, and causes stiff, spastic muscles in legs and arms, as well as difficulty grasping objects, crawling, and walking. They do not get better or worse as they grow older. (Source: NINDS Cerebral Palsy)
    2. Spastic diplegia was first referred to as Little's disease.
    3. Little first believed that cerebral palsy was caused by lack of oxygen during birth.
    4. 1987 - Sigmund Freud disagreed:
      1. Victims often had mental retardation, visual disturbances, and seizures.
      2. He proposed that it is caused during the development of the brain.
    5. Research had lead to great changes in understanding, diagnosing, and treating people with cerebral palsy.
    6. Early identification gives the best chance for survival.
    7. Improved diagnostic techniques:
      1. Brain imaging.
      2. Modern gait analysis.
    8. Some conditions that cause cerebral palsy can now be cured:
      1. Rubella (German measles).
      2. Jaundice.
    9. Physical, psychological, and behavioral therapy can help cerebral palsy victims.
    10. Medication, surgery, and braces can help with motor skills.
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    Symptoms

    • What is Cerebral Palsy?:
      1. Encompasses many chronic disorders impairing control of movement that appear in the first few years of life and generally do not get worse.
      2. "Cerebral" refers to the brain's two halves. "Palsy" refers to any disorder that impairs control of body movement.
      3. Nothing is wrong with muscles or nerves, just the area of the brain that controls them.
      4. Symptoms:
        1. Difficulty with fine motor tasks, such as writing or cutting with scissors.
        2. Trouble with maintaining balance and walking.
        3. Involuntary movements, such as uncontrollable motion of the hands or drooling.
      5. Can be of varying severity, and may not cause profound handicap.
      6. Not contagious or inherited from one generation to the next.
      7. Right now, cerebral palsy cannot be cured, but research still continues.
      8. Approximately five-hundred thousand people have cerebral palsy. This number has remained consistent for thirty years.
      9. Classified into four broad categories according to the type of movement disturbance:
          Cerebral Palsy Victim
          Source: Susie's Cerebral Palsy Page
        1. Spastic:
          1. 70-80% of patients.
          2. Muscles are stiffly and permanently contracted.
        2. Anthetoid:
          1. 10-20% of patients.
          2. Uncontrolled, slow, writhing movements.
          3. Affects hands, feet, arms, or legs, and in some cases, the muscles of the face or tongue, causing grimacing or drooling.
        3. Ataxic:
          1. 5-10% of patients.
          2. Affects balance and coordination.
        4. Mixed forms:
          1. May have more than one of the above forms.
      10. Medical disorders associated with cerebral palsy include:
        1. Mental impairment.
        2. Seizures or epilepsy.
        3. Tonic-clonic.
        4. Cause patients to cry out and are followed by loss of consciousness, twitching of legs and arms, convulsive body movements, and loss of bladder control.
        5. Partial seizures:
          1. Simple - Muscle twitches, numbness, or tingling.
          2. Complex - Hallucinations, staggering, performing automatic and purposeless movements, or experiencing impaired consciousness or confusion.
        6. Growth problems.
        7. Muscles and limbs affected by cerebral palsy tend to be smaller.
        8. Impaired vision or hearing.
        9. Abnormal sensation and perception.
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Treatments

    Spinal Injection - Cerebral palsy treatment of the future?
  1. New and improved methods of detecting cerebral palsy, which include:
    1. Using magnetic pulses to locate brain areas that control specific body functions - useful in the cases of cerebral palsy patients who are paralyzed or disabled in certain parts of the body only.
    2. Some patients of cerebral palsy have a condition known as spasticity, in which the muscles are severely and permanently contracted. A possible treatment that is undergoing testing right now is that of inserting a small pump into the patient's spinal cord, which constantly injects anti-spasticity drugs into the nervous system.
  2. Other seizure drugs include:
    1. Carbamazepine.
    2. Clonazepam.
    3. Malproate.
    4. Clorazepate.
    5. Feibamate.
    6. Magnesium is also providing to be a very promising drug, as animal studies indicate that magnesium sulfate can reduce brain damage when administered after traumatic brain injuries.
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Current Research

    Source: Scope
  1. Cerebral palsy has been a very mysterious disease in the past, and only recently have scientists been making discoveries about some possible ways of treating cerebral palsy.
  2. Right now (1997) research is being done on:
    1. The relationship between a shortage of blood flow to the brain and cerebral palsy.
    2. Drugs that may be able to prevent stroke in infants.
    3. Drugs that can safely delay labor, thus minimizing the chance of brain damage to the infant.
    4. New devices that can improve medical care for premature infants.
    5. The relationship between smoking, alcohol, prenatal stroke, and cerebral palsy.
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Links

  • United Cerebral Palsy Association

  • Cerebral Palsy and Spasticity

  • Cerebral Palsy Network Chat

  • Cerebral Palsy Info Central

  • Susie's Cerebral Palsy Page

  • Healthtouch

    • Works Cited

    Chulder, E.H. "Milestones in Neurological Research" 1997: n. pag. online. Internet. 24 March 1998. Available: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~chudler/hist.html.

    National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "Causes, Risk Factors, Prevention and Diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy." Cerebral Palsy: Hope Through Research. September 1993: n. pag. online. Internet. 24 March 1998. Available: http://www.healthtouch.com/level1/leaflets/ninds/ninds076.htm.

    National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "Cerebral Palsy." Cerebral Palsy: Hope Through Research. September 1993: n. pag. online. Internet. 24 March 1998. Available: http://www.healthtouch.com/level1/leaflets/ninds/ninds033.htm.

    National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "Research on Cerebral Palsy." Cerebral Palsy: Hope Through Research. September 1993: n. pag. online. Internet. 24 March 1998. Available: http://www.healthtouch.com/level1/leaflets/ninds/ninds071.htm.

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