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What is cerebral palsy? It is a condition wherein a child suffers from inability to move some of the muscles in the body. This is due to the injury in some areas of the brain that controls the movement and muscle tone. The child with this impairment maybe clumsy or awkward, or in severe cases, he might not be able to walk because of the poor muscle tone. It can also be the cause of mental retardation.
Cerebral palsy is incurable. Once your child has it, it is permanent and irreversible but the signs and symptoms can be treated. It depends upon the severity of the impairment. The cerebral palsy treatment is very complicated and more often, it involves multi-disciplinary approach. The cerebral palsy treatment can be easy without mental retardation, hearing loss and visual impairment.
The best cerebral palsy treatment is physical therapy. If your kid's muscle is weak, your kid might need to do some specific exercises to prevent muscle atrophy because of lack of use. If your kid's muscles are spastic, some treatments are also required to prevent the result of significant mobility losses.
The physical therapy is done to improve motor development skills and coordination as well. As your kid grows older, he will need to undergo certain training such as behavioral and psychological therapy to be able to improve their coping skills and daily living activities. You can also improve your kid's ability in speech, visualization and hearing as you let them take specific cerebral palsy treatment that focuses more on the development in these areas.
Your kids will need to take medication to make the cerebral palsy treatment effective. Most of the drugs that will be taken are like muscle relaxing drugs that is injected to relax some of the muscle groups temporarily. Some cerebral palsy patients have involuntary writhing movements so they need to take certain drugs to treat it. If your kid is suffering from seizure, your kid must take anti-seizure drugs to prevent it.
Surgeries are also used as cerebral palsy treatment. These operations will make the short muscles to elongate as well as to reduce the numbers of nerves to lessen its spasticity. Brain implants and surgery are also proven effective cerebral palsy treatment. You will need to ask your kid's doctor about it.
The following are some of the facts about ataxic cerebral palsy which you need to be aware of:
• The cerebellum is the part of the human brain that is damaged, causing the ataxic type of cerebral palsy. It is responsible for the coordination and balance of body movements.
• Once damaged, it could result on the following:
o Hypotonia disorder or poor muscle tone;
o Having hard time maintaining balance;
o Depth perception disorders;
o Various tremors; and
o Disability in controlling the motion and range of voluntary movements.
• Children affected with ataxic cerebral palsy may show the following signs:
o Demonstrating unsteady gait;
o Intention tremors while attempting to perform any voluntary movements;
o Clumsiness and difficulty in performing such voluntary movements;
o Writing task is severely affected;
o Depth perception disorder results to coarser movements like reaching for any object;
o Involuntary and rapid eyeball movements; and
o Other related conditions such as visual and hearing disabilities, seizures, and possibly mental retardation.
In most cases, a doctor diagnoses a child for any possible presence of ataxic cerebral palsy through a combination of meticulous physical examination and findings from medical imaging methods like MRI and CT scans. Such findings along with the result of the physical examination are used to evaluate and identify if the brain is developing normally or not. Moreover, if not diagnosed at an early age, it may worse as the affected child ages.
Sad to say, the cure for ataxic cerebral palsy has to be formulated. However, it can be treated by the help of therapies and medical substances. One of the popular treatments used to combat ataxic cerebral palsy is by undergoing a process called chronic cerebella. It starts by placing any stimulation medium such as electrode at the surface of the damaged cerebellum. This is believed to restore the muscle tone and balance.
It is important that you are aware of the signs of ataxic cerebral palsy for it will be your cue if your child is suffering from it, thus you can brought him/her to your physician for further evaluation. Your child's life as well as his/her future is at stake here, so it is imperative that you are not negligent. Be alert and be aware of ataxic cerebral palsy.