Cerebral Palsy - What You Should Know

Cerebral palsy is a form of brain damage that affects the motor skills of children. It is a result of damage that occurs during pregnancy, at birth or within three years of age and there is no cure. This means that those suffering this debilitating condition will suffer its ill effects their entire lives. Stiff muscles and muscle contractions are the symptoms of one of the most common forms of CP; spastic cerebral palsy.

Spastic cerebral palsy causes the muscles to stiffen; making movement difficult. During normal muscle functioning, muscles work in pairs. Each has two sets of nerve pathways; pathways that route signals to the brain and pathways that receive the signal. Normally, both work in tandem with each other to ensure free movement.

In the case of a person with spastic CP, both sets of nerves become active together. This floods the nervous system with messages, which causes a traffic jam of signals to be created. Eventual tenseness in the muscles is created, which in turn causes the muscles to malfunction. The muscles in the areas affected will become stiff and when they are forced to stretch, they may cause sudden, jerky movements.

Muscle involvement may differ from person to person, although the muscles of the legs and arms seem to be the most affected body parts of an individual suffering from spastic CP. There are a few variations of this disorder. One is spastic diplegia. It is a type of spastic cerebral palsy where the leg muscles are severely affected. So much so that the legs turn in and cross at the knees. With spastic diplegia, a person can experience stiffness of their legs when they try to walk.

Another form is spastic hemiplegia. It involves half of each limb being severely affected. This type is generally diagnosed when a physician examines an infant for hand preference. An infant less than one year of age does not show any type of hand preference. If an infant is affected with spastic hemiplegia, however, the child will show hand preference on the affected side of the body.

Timely treatment can help avoid the permanent effects of the spastic form of cerebral palsy, since rigidity of muscles is the main deteriorating factor of this disorder. Many physical therapies like crawling are known to have worked very well for afflicted children. Apart from treating the obvious physical symptoms, raising a person's self-esteem is another step in the battle against CP. This condition can cause problems with self-image, so therapy is sometimes recommended as well.

As time wears on, spastic CP can cause debilitating symptoms and disability can result from not receiving treatment. Loss of bladder control, uncontrollable shaking and hand contraction can be permanent. Depending on the level of function and severity of the condition, treatment for the spastic form of cerebral palsy can vary from person to person.

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