About Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy is a medical condition that affects the motor functions and skills of the person affected. This is because there are several parts of the brain that has been damaged. There are many symptoms associated with cerebral palsy yet there are still many things about cerebral palsy that has yet to be determined like the exact cause.

About Cerebral Palsy

Since the different areas and parts of the brain controls different functions there might be several things that a normal person can do that might be hard for the person affected with this condition. The reason why there are different symptoms that are exhibited by cerebral palsy patients is because there are different parts of the brain that may be affected. When you hear about cerebral palsy, you would normally think of a person who would have problems with motor skills, speech and even as simple as eating, this is because the only thing that is affected by cerebral palsy is the motor faculties or skills and not the mental faculties of the patient.

Cerebral palsy is a chronic medical condition that can be experienced by a patient for a long time since there is no cure to it yet. Contrary to what others may think cerebral palsy is not a disease, it is a chronic condition brought about by the damage of some parts of the brain. This is not a progressive medical condition and it is also not contagious. Medications and physical therapy could help the person affected with it to live normal lives.

Depending on what part of the brain was damage this medical condition could exhibit some of these symptoms like not being able to control movement or what we call as involuntary movement, no sense of balance and would find it hard to walk, having muscle spasm, impaired sense of hearing and sight, would have a hard time in talking and would have seizures.

Damage to the brain resulting to cerebral palsy could occur as early as when the fetus is still in the womb and during the birthing process. There are three main types of cerebral palsy, the spastic cerebral palsy, athetoid cerebral palsy and ataxic cerebral palsy but there are also cases when all of these would be seen in a person. Spastic cerebral palsy can be characterized by stiff muscles which makes movement difficult. Athetoid cerebral palsy, this is when movements cannot be controlled or involuntary movement. Ataxic cerebral palsy is when the person would have no sense of balance and depth.

Science and the medical community have come up with several risk factors or variables that could bring about cerebral palsy. These risk factors does not really guarantee that the condition will be acquired by your child but there would be greater chances and the absence of these risk factors would not necessarily exclude your child from acquiring or developing this condition either. Some of these risk factors are parents who are under the age of 20 years old, mothers who are already past 40 years old, being born with a low birth weight and premature birth.