Cerebral palsy (cerebral palsy) is the most common form of childhood disability. The essence of the disease clearly means its translation, "relaxation of the brain." Causes of cerebral palsy occur during pregnancy, childbirth, in infancy and lie in the defeat of one or many parts of the brain. As a result, there is a violation in motor and muscle activity.
In order to understand the mechanisms of cerebral palsy, the symptoms of the disease, it is necessary to find out the causes of its occurrence.
Cerebral palsy does not apply to infectious or hereditary diseases. As the child grows, it does not develop and does not progress. But if you ignore cerebral palsy, symptoms and rehabilitation, then this can cause the acquisition of new diseases, for example, scoliosis. With adequate care for children with cerebral palsy, their condition improves markedly, life enters a different direction. When studying the mechanisms of development of cerebral palsy, the causes are as follows:
- child hypoxia (lack of oxygen), ischemia (insufficient blood supply). This happens either during the bearing of the child, or during childbirth.
- neglected or not completely cured infection in the mother during pregnancy or infection received by the child in the first days of life;
- intoxication caused by various methods in the mother and, therefore, transmitted to the baby. This may also be a consequence of taking strong drugs, including psychoactive or harmful working conditions.
- trauma to the child (in childbirth or in early childhood).
Signs of cerebral palsy begin to appear at an early age, almost from birth. With normal development, unconditioned reflexes almost disappear at the age of six months, in the case of cerebral palsy, this factor is delayed. When a child reaches the age of one and a half years, the predominant activity of only one arm is observed, which is a signal of a probable muscle pathology and an early sign of cerebral palsy.
Symptoms of cerebral palsy are very diverse. In milder forms, they look like inconspicuous clumsiness, and in more serious forms they take the form of muscle spasms. This does not allow the child to move freely and forever makes him the owner of a wheelchair. The severity of cerebral palsy, a symptom of cerebral palsy is directly related to the extent of brain damage. Damage can occur inactive, so that they are barely noticeable even to a specialist, and can greatly progress and be obvious to others. With age, the symptoms of cerebral palsy are manifested to a greater extent (during the active development of the nervous system).
The manifestation of cerebral palsy, the symptoms of the disease are divided into primary and secondary.
Primary symptoms include the following:
- Late head incontinence, physical inability to roll over.
- Lack of activity or complete absence of grasping reflexes.
- Lack of normal physical activity inherent in this particular age.
- The presence of unconditioned reflexes in a child with cerebral palsy at the age at which they are already absent in a healthy child.
- Muscle failure, developmental abnormality. It manifests itself in different ways, in the form of lethargy or, on the contrary, with severe cramps.
- Motor pathology. It manifests itself in the form of unjustified extra movements.
- Poor coordination, sometimes tiptoeing.
Secondary signs of cerebral palsy include later and more severe pathologies. These are muscle cramps, mental retardation, inadequate hearing, vision, skeletal abnormalities, such as underdevelopment of the limbs.
Taking into account all the accumulated medical experience, today we can state the sad fact that cerebral palsy is still incurable. The progression of the disease and the alleviation of the symptoms of the disease can be minimized by the timely detection of symptoms and adequate treatment.