Cerebral Palsy Treatment
Cerebral palsy is a group of chronic disorders impairing
control of movement. Cerebral palsy occurs when there is
brain damage. The effect of cerebral palsy on an individual
can face serious and difficult medical, social, and education
challenges. While there is no cure for cerebral palsy, different
treatment methods are constantly being researched and improved.
There are no treatments that can undo the damage and symptoms
of cerebral palsy. Treatment for cerebral palsy includes
different therapeutic approaches to help better manage the
potential physical and mental aspects of a child. Physical
therapy, drug therapy, or surgery may be implemented as
part of a cerebral palsy treatment depending on the individual’s
needs.
Physical therapy is important treatments, started
soon after a diagnosis is made in the first years of a child’s
life. Specific exercises helps to keep the muscles from
becoming weakened and from deteriorating from lack of use.
Cerebral palsy patients can experience muscle contractures,
when muscles become fixed in a rigid and abnormal position.
Exercises help to avoid contractures, which is one
of the most serious, as well as common, complications with
cerebral palsy. Contractures can disrupt previous achievements
and disrupt balance. When muscles and tendons are prevented
from stretching and do not grow fast enough to keep up with
lengthening bones, it is called spasticity.
Physical therapy is used to prevent contractures
complications by stretching spastic muscles, caused because
most children are able to grow and stretch the muscles and
tendons from their everyday activities. Physical therapy
is also used in certain situations to improve motor development,
in addition to behavior therapy in some situations that
uses psychological theory and techniques to complement physical,
speech, or occupational therapy.
Drug therapy is used when the cerebral palsy patient
has seizures and the medications can prevent them from occurring.
Drugs are used to control spasticity by interfering with
the process of muscle contractions, though drugs used for
the long-term control of spasticity has not been clearly
proven yet. The drugs have only been shown to be effective
in the short-term range. Other cerebral palsy patients may
have alcohol injected into a muscle to help reduce spasticity
for short periods of time, and the physician can work on
lengthening the muscle at this time. Patients with athetoid
cerebral palsy sometimes are prescribed drugs to reduce
the abnormal movements that they experience.
Some cases of cerebral palsy cause contractures to be so
severe that it causes problems in movement, so surgery is
used to lengthen the shortened muscle. There is also a surgery
that can reduce spasticity in the legs. This surgery that
reduces the amount of stimulation that can reach the leg
muscles by the nerves, is still being researched on a continual
basis to determine its overall effectiveness.
The Center for Cerebral Palsy represents
attorneys throughout the United States providing information
and legal advice for victims.
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