Cerebral palsy: Overview, Causes, Types, Symptoms, Treatment and Management

CEREBRAL PALSY

Overview
What is cerebral palsy?
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a known neurological disorder that affects the body's posture, muscle tone caused by  damage to developing brain of a baby.  Cerebral palsy is a disorder that affects movement, motor skills, and muscle tone.  Cerebral palsy affects the brain and causes deficiency motor skills which can affect both voluntary and involuntary movement, this is caused by brain damage that develops while the baby is still in uterus, during birth of the baby or soon after birth of the baby.

Cerebral means brain that  organizes and controls the motor functions of the boys while  Palsy means the paralysis of voluntary movement some parts of the body. The onset of cerebral palsy does not mean the person becomes abnormal, individuals with cerebral palsy can still have a good life, and live long. However cerebral palsy is not infections, it does not necessarily tamper with the cognitive functions and intelligence capacities of the affected person.
Cerebral palsy is not progressive which means it does not get bad or worse with age, however it often improves with age. Cerebral palsy is a congenital disorder affects about 2.1 per 1,000 live births, however there is no known cure for cerebral palsy but there several effective treatment and management options.

Causes of cerebral palsy

Causes of cerebral palsy are multi-dimensional and multi-causal, here are some of the possible causes:
Underdeveloped baby's brain when in the uterus.
Damaged during  birth or After birth.
Reduce blood flow to the brain
Reduction in the supply of oxygen to the brain
Meningitis
Severe injury to the head
Infection to the mother during pregnancy
Delayed Labour more that 18 hours

Contributing risk factors that may cause higher risk of cerebral palsy includes:
Placenta damage
Poor nutrition during pregnancy
Multiple births ( twin, triplets etc)
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
Breech delivery
Obstructive delivery due to small pelvis
Alcohol consumption
Fetal brain malformation
However in some cases the cause of cerebral palsy is not known.


Symptoms of cerebral palsy 

At a very young age  after birth the disorder may not be noticeable and obvious it becomes obvious and noticeable in some cases. The following symptoms can be seen in cerebral palsy affected individuals.
Difficulty  with walking and  body movements
Rigidity of the muscle and shorting of the muscle
Difficulty with coordination and balance know as ataxia
overactive reflexes and  involuntary movements
muscle spasms and sometimes paralysis of one side of the body
Difficulty with learning
Speech disorder and delay in a child 
Developmental issue not walking at 18 months or sitting at 8  months
Difficulty  swallowing
Drooling
seizures
weak arms or legs and walking on tip-toes


Types of cerebral palsy

Spastic cerebral palsy
Spastic cerebral palsy is the most common type of cerebral palsy. This type of disorder affects about 76.9% of people with cerebral palsy. It has a distinctive symptoms that somehow differentiate it from others this includes:
Inability of the baby to reach milestones in walking, crawling, and sitting
Abnormal movement and movement inhibition
Muscle stiffness
Difficulty to control muscles
Finding it hard to move from one place to the other
Movement inhibition
Stiff muscles
However spastic cerebral palsy also is differentiated into three different types
Spastic quadriplegia: This type of spastic cerebral palsy is the most severe it involves cognitive functions. It affects the legs, arms, and body which can cause limb deformation, therefore affecting walking and talking which can often be accompanied by Seizures.
Spastic hemiplegia : This is accompanied with s muscle stiffness and spasm on one side of the body. It could be just a hand or a leg.  This side affected by The palsy may not develop properly.
Spastic diplegia: This type of spastic cerebral palsy affects the lower limbs of affected individuals and the upper body is less affected or not affected. This type manifests with tight leg muscles that can cause cross legs at The knee also called scissoring which can affect walking.

Athetoid or dyskinetic cerebral palsy
Dyskinetic cerebral palsy or anthetoid or dystonia cerebral palsy is the is the second most common type of cerebral palsy disorders. It is estimated to affect about 2.6% of all cerebral palsy disorder cases. This type of disorder does not affect the intelligence of the affected individuals but they experience muscular issues and problems that affects the body, this abnormality causes weak muscle tone that causes uncontrollable body movements.
Dyskinetic cerebral palsy symptoms include:
Repetitive motions
Awkward posture
Irregular movements also known as chorea
Twisting motions (dystonia)
Slow, writhing movements (athetosis)
Drooling is often experienced in some children and individual if they have issues with their facial muscles and  people with dyskinetic cerebral palsy often have problem with walking, sitting and maintaining a balanced posture.

Ataxic cerebral palsy
Ataxic cerebral palsy is the least common of all the Cerebral palsy disorders.  It got its name from the word ataxia, which “without order.” Ataxia cerebral palsy I that which come with disorganised coordination and balance, however normal intelligence and communication skills are often normal but in some instances some may develop speech difficulties. This type of disorder is highlighted by tremor, shaky movement, poor balance and poor coordination. This affects the motor skills and cause the individuals to walk with their feet apart

Hypotonic cerebral palsy
Hypotonic cerebral palsy is often as a result of injury to the brain or severe malfunction at an earlier  developmental stage of the brain and as a result  muscle problems appear very early. The baby's head and body will be floppy like a rag doll due to diminished muscle tone, there may be problems and difficulty with breathing.

Treatments and management for cerebral palsy
There are range of management for cerebral palsy but currently there is no cure for the disorder. Range of drugs, therapy and surgery are available to manage cerebral palsy disorder
Medication  prescribed to help control the disabilities and effects of the disorder. The most common types include:
Anticonvulsant medication, such as gabapentin and topiramate
Antispastic medication
Antidepressant medication
Anti-inflammatory medication,
physiotherapy – this help maintain physical ability and helps with  movement problems
speech therapy
occupational therapy – to help the individual carrying out everyday tasks easier
Surgery to treat movement or growth problems