Cerebral palsy is referred as a static neurological condition resulting from brain injury that occurs earlier than cerebral development is completed. Since the brain development continues throughout the first two years of life, cerebral palsy can take effect from brain injury taking place for the period of the prenatal, perinatal, or postnatal periods. Almost seventy to eighty percent of cerebral palsy cases are acquired prenatally, and from largely unidentified causes.
The damage to the area of brain causes disability of muscles movement which results in inability to move different body parts. Cerebral palsy is not a novel disorder but it is present since the beginning of life. The studies on this disorder started from 1861.
The arrangement of cerebral palsy can be global mental and physical dysfunction or isolated disturbances in way of walking, cognition, development, or awareness. It is the most general childhood physical disability, and affects almost 2 to 2.5 children per 1,000 born. The disparity diagnoses of cerebral palsy consist of metabolic and genetic disorders.
The goals of treatment are to develop functionality, and capabilities toward self-determination. Multispecialty treatment teams must be developed more or less the needs of each patient to make available incessantly updated global treatment care plans. Complications related to cerebral palsy include spasticity, contractures, feeding difficulty, drooling, communication difficulty, osteopenia, osteoporosis, fractures, pain and various functional gastrointestinal abnormalities contributing to bowel obstruction, vomiting, and constipation.
The assessment involves the examination of the strength of the child. It is the inspection of the current health status of the child. The medical practitioner checks the motor skills, and compares it with the age of the child. The doctor also examines the slow development, abnormal muscle tone, and unusual posture. Moreover, intellectual capabilities are also assessed to reach the diagnosis of the problem. During the assessment for cerebral palsy, the other disorders causing the defect in the movement are usually ignored.
There are several assessment instruments, which are available to quantify, and monitor developmental milestones, and skills, and to assess the quality of life of patients, and their caregivers. Eagerly available and positive assessment instruments consist of the Child Health Questionnaire, the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale, and the Gross Motor Function Classification System for Cerebral Palsy.
It is seen that doctors usually take lot of time in diagnosing cerebral palsy because the brain of children has the ability to recover partially or completely after an injury and the child’s nervous system organizes over a period of time. So, the doctors have to assess each and every aspect of the life of child before making the final diagnosis. Some specialized tests, for example computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and intelligence tests are used apart from conducting a review of mother’s pregnancy, labour and delivery. The rate of cerebral palsy can be reduced by taking more care of pregnant women and providing them more facilities during delivery. The treatments of cerebral palsy include physiotherapy, occupational therapy, orthotic devices, speech therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, nutritional counselling, massage therapy, hatha yoga, surgery, cord blood therapy, conductive education, biofeedback and neuro-cognitive therapy etc.
The other functional scales consist of the Paediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory, which is a judgment based consistent instrument using parent report in the course of a structured interview measuring both fine, and gross-motor movements associated to self-care, and mobility. The Functional Independence Measure for adults and for children is used to measure the amount of support a person would require to carry out activities of daily living, and the Ashworth and Modified Ashworth scales, which help grade the muscle spasticity.
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