Brainpalsy.com - Helping Parents Combat Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral Palsy-CP:-The majority of normal children must recognize toys in 3-4 months, sitting at 6-7 months, to rise to 10-14 months, are based on motor function. A doctor may suspect cerebral palsy in a child whose development of these skills is delayed. In making a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, the doctor takes into account the late stages of development, as well as physical findings which could include abnormal muscle tone, abnormal movements, abnormal reflexes and the persistence of infantile reflexes.

Making a definitive diagnosis of cerebral palsy is not always easy, especially before the child’s first birthday. Indeed, the diagnosis of cerebral palsy usually involves a waiting period of the final and permanent appearance of engine problems.

Most children with cerebral palsy can be diagnosed by the age of 18 months, but eighteen months is a long time for parents to wait for a diagnosis, and this is understandably a difficult period for them. Making a diagnosis of cerebral palsy is also difficult when, for example, two years old, has suffered a head injury. The child may appear immediately to be seriously injured, and three months after the injury that may have symptoms that are typical of a child with cerebral palsy. But one year after the injury for example, a child may be completely normal. This child does not have cerebral palsy. Despite having a scar on his brain, the scar is not a permanent decline in the activities of its engine. After the injury, hopes and observation are needed before the diagnosis can be made.

The diagnosis of cerebral palsy, is examining the physical evidence of abnormal motor function. A diagnosis of cerebral palsy can not be done on the basis of blood tests, although the doctor may order these tests to exclude other neurological diseases (such as those mentioned above).

Blood tests and analysis of chromosomes are useful for diagnosing hereditary conditions that can influence the future parents parenting decisions. Where the evidence shows that a child’s condition is something other than cerebral palsy and that the condition is inherited, family members will benefit from genetic counseling. Cerebral palsy is not a hereditary condition, however, and these tests or to establish or rule out a diagnosis of CP.

The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans are often ordered when the doctor suspects that a child has cerebral palsy. These tests can provide evidence of hydrocephaly (an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the brain ventricles), and can be used to exclude other causes of engine problems.

Cerebral Palsy-CP-These scans do not show whether a child has cerebral palsy, or predict how a child will function as it grows. Thus, children with normal scans can have severe cerebral palsy, children with abnormal scans clearly and occasionally appear completely normal or only mild physical evidence of cerebral palsy. As a group, however, children with cerebral palsy have brain scarring, cysts, and other changes appearing in the examinations more frequently than in normal children. Therefore, when a scar is a CT scan of the brain of a child whose physical examination suggests he may have cerebral palsy, the scar is one more piece of evidence that the child may have motor problems in the future .

Cerebral palsy can be categorized by the type of problem of movement (as athetoid cerebral palsy or spastic) or body parts in question (hemiplegia, diplejia, and quadriplegia). Spasticity refers to the inability of a muscle to relax, while athetosis refers to an inability to control the movement of a muscle.

Cerebral Palsy-CP - Infants who are at first hypotonic they are very floppy may develop later spasticity. Hemiplegia is cerebral palsy that involves an arm and a leg on the same side of the body, while with diplejia participation is vital both legs. Quadriplegia refers to a pattern involving all four limbs and trunk and neck muscles. Another classification is frequently ataxia, which refers to the balance and coordination problems.

Cerebral Palsy-CP-engine disability of a child with cerebral palsy varies widely from child to child, so generalizations about children with cerebral palsy can only have meaning in the context of the subgroups described above. For this reason, the subgroups will be used in this book whenever the treatment cures the expectations and results are discussed. Most professionals who care for children with cerebral palsy understand these diagnoses and use them to communicate about a child’s condition.

Cerebral Palsy-CP-A useful method for making subdivisions is determined by which body parts are involved. Although almost all children with cerebral palsy can be classified as hemiplegia, diplejia, or quadriplegia, there are important similarities that have led to the use of additional terms, some of which are very confusing.

To avoid confusion, most of the debate in his book is limited to the use of these three terms. Occasionally terms such as paraplegia, double hemiplegia, triplegia, and pentaplegia can eventually be found by the reader, these classifications are also based on body parts involved. The dominant type of movement or muscle coordination problem is the other method by which children are divided and classified to assist in communicating on the problems of cerebral palsy.

The component that seems to be causing the problem is most often used as the categorization of time. For example, children with spastic diplegia has mainly spastic muscle problems, and most of participation is in the legs, but the child may also have a minor component of athetosis and balance problems. The child with athetoid quadriplegia, moreover, would have the participation of both arms and legs, mainly with athetoid muscle problems, but that child often has some ataxia and spasticity as well. Generally, a child with quadriplegia is a little child who is not independent.
The reader may be familiar with other terms used to define the specific problems of movement or muscle function terms as dystonia, tremor, ballismus, and stiffness.

The words serious, moderate, mild and is often used in combination with both anatomical and motor function classification terms (severe spastic diplegia, for example), but these words have no specific meaning.