Children with cerebral palsy can benefit from speech, occupational and physical therapy interventions, especially in helping with self-care, communication, and motor skills. Families should be educated on how to apply for assistance, and to provide the maximum benefit to the individual by developing and improving skills, and helping with adaptive or self-help strategies. Physical therapists should play an important role in the rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy.
Cerebral palsy is a physical disability that affects the development of motor skills and is a common problem in children and older adults. Each country is unique in the number of people affected, type of disabilities and severity. It also differs in how it is treated and what care it is available through the age of the person involved, as well as the environment in which the person lives and is used.\n
around 2.8 million people in the United States currently have CP/Tetrasomy. We believe that these numbers are underestimates as most people with CP are asymptomatic and thus unrecognized. We speculate that this problem will continue unabated for at least another 10 years if current trends persist.
Signs of cerebral palsy may include a decreased sense of balance, muscle weakness, abnormal gait, spasticity, a loss of coordination and an inability to swallow. Signs involve the cranial part of the body, particularly the face, hands and upper limbs. However, there may not be associated limb abnormalities, as they are present in the limbs of some people with cerebral palsy. Children may show signs of the condition that occur in multiple parts of the body, which include cerebral palsy. These may include weak muscle tone in limbs not involved in CP or, other times, muscle rigidity. It is common for some CP children to have muscle weakness and muscle rigidity.\nhttp://www.cdc.
Although it is not possible to cure CP, many patients with moderate to profound disability can lead a relatively full life. Physical therapists who do a good job of rehabilitation are rewarded with a relatively high likelihood of achieving good outcomes in adulthood.
It is likely that multiple factors contribute to the development of CP. Possible risk factors include the mother's body habitus, and environmental exposures in utero or in early childhood.
It seems that there are only three basic types of treatments that are used to treat cerebral palsy: physiotherapy, oral-motor strategy, and botulinum toxin A. More research is still needed, but physiotherapy and botulinum toxin A appear to be effective alternatives. Botulinum toxin A provides benefits to some patients and is especially useful for the treatment of CP-related spasticity. Additionally, there are still many ways to lessen the severity and effects of cerebral palsy, and it seems they are gaining popularity. Physicians in many countries are using them more and more as everyday CP care options.
The international research was not updated anytime since the 2000s, and the only papers reporting the latest advances in cerebral palsy research were published in 2008/2009. There were only 13 papers reporting new data in the last 3 years, including a review on the current treatment for stroke/tIA. The most common topics in recent studies of cerebral palsy were: treatment and rehabilitation (e.g. locomotion training); motor skills (e.g. functional goal attainment and the role of the brain in the acquisition of motor skills like handwriting, turning, pushing and pulling); and prevention (e.g. early identification of children at risk and of preventive measures).
There is not enough data to draw any conclusions on efficacy or safety of RAAD because of the limitations of the current trials. More rigorous validation of RAAD is necessary to obtain results that show benefit in daily practice.
This is the first study of the usage of a robotic device to facilitate postural correction and ankle support as part of the treatment program for children with cerebral palsy. Data from a recent study showed that the device was safe and effective. Therefore, it can be considered a potential adjunct method to treatment in improving functional outcomes. More research will be necessary to evaluate the device's long-term effectiveness.
The RAD system has been found effective through studies in other types of ambulatory orthopaedic and neurological conditions. It can aid in walking tasks. However, it is not normally used in combination with other modalities for CP. We can recommend use of this device with other types of CP.
We found no difference in severity of CP based on the specific cause of injury to the brain. There is no medical consensus on which specific cause of cerebral impairment should be attributed to CP, therefore the most appropriate statistical tests have not been specified.