Cerebral palsy: causes, symptoms, and management

CEREBRAL PALSY is the term used to describe mental retardation in children with malformed brains. It has been noticed that the disorder generally occurs in premature children or kids who needed intensive care right after birth. Causes of the disorder are unknown but it is believed that all children with this problem have underdeveloped brains or improper brain functioning, which can be caused by premature birth, injury during birthing process or injury in mother's womb. Many believe that cerebral palsy is not one disorder but like other childhood conditions including ADHD, CP also represents several disorders where a child loses control over his muscles and movements. But it has been medically proved that impaired muscle control is not the result of faulty muscles but is solely connected with improper functioning of the brain.

When a certain part of the brain is injured or underdeveloped, it affects a person's connection with his muscles that leads to involuntary or uncontrolled movements. One cerebral palsy care guide sheds light on the subject of what causes CP: "We do not know the cause of most cases of cerebral palsy. That is, we are unable to determine what caused cerebral palsy in most children who have congenital CP. We do know that the child who is at highest risk for developing CP is the premature, very small baby who does not cry in the first five minutes after delivery, who needs to be on a ventilator for over four weeks, and who has bleeding in his brain. Babies who have congenital malformations in systems such as the heart, kidneys, or spine are also more likely to develop CP, probably because they also have malformations in the brain. Seizures in a newborn also increase the risk of CP." (THE ALFRED I. DUPONT INSTITUTE, Cerebral Palsy: a Guide for Care, reference 1)

Symptoms of cerebral palsy range from inability to write and walk properly to severe mental retardation. How CP would affect a child varies from person to person and is directly connected with severity of his condition. For example in some cases a child with cerebral palsy might require constant care all his life while in others, he/she may lead quite a normal life with few problems. It is important to understand that cerebral palsy is not synonymous with severe retardation and mental impairment but its effects can differ from case to case. Some children with CP might also experience epileptic seizures because of brain injury but this is also limited to certain percentage of CP patients and others may never undergo such problems. Intellectual weakness is also noticed in most CP cases but it is believed that severe mental retardation is the result of spastic quadriplegia (Cerebral Palsy: Hope Through Research, reference 2), another childhood condition that falls under the umbrella of CP. One thing to know about CP is that unlike other childhood disorders like hyperactivity or ADHD, cerebral palsy is not something one can outgrow with age. In other words, a child with CP would enter adulthood with this disorder but the extent to which it might affect his life depends on the severity of his condition.