Cerebral Palsy ? Symptoms and Different types of this Disease

Posted by Shalini Portea on December 26th, 2018

Cerebral palsy is a term that is used to refer to different types of physical disorders that affects an individual’s ability to move. This sort of condition occurs as a result of damage to the developing brain, which either takes place during pregnancy or after birth. This particular disease, affect people in many ways and can seriously hamper movements of the body parts, muscle coordination, muscle control, reflex, muscle tone, balance, and posture. This is a lifelong condition which stays with an individual permanently. However, it can improve over a period of time. Those who are affected by this disease may also experience learning, visual, speech, intellectual and hearing impairments. Some of them might also develop epilepsy.

What are the Symptoms?

Followings are the symptoms which could lead to this condition.

• Underdeveloped or overdevelop muscles which can lead to floppy or stiff movement
• Poor body balance and coordination, which is known as ataxia
• Slow, involuntary writhing movement
• The growth of stiff muscles which tend to contract abnormally. This condition is known as spastic paralysis
• Crawling in an unusual manner
• Using an awkward position while lying
• Using one particular side of the body more than the other
• Restricted movement

These are the primary symptoms of this disease. However, there are other symptoms which cannot be overlooked. They are:

• Late to crawl, walk or speak
• Eyesight and hearing problems
• Seizures
• Problems controlling muscle and bladder movements
• Problems with sucking, feeding, and swallowing

These symptoms start arising during the first 3 years of one’s life

What are the Different Types of this Disease?

There are four different types of this disease. They are as follows:

• Spastic Cerebral Palsy: This is the most common form of this condition. Those who are suffering from this condition could experience stiffness in the body and their movements would look jerky and stiff. Spasticity is a condition with the increased tone of muscle or hypotonia. This condition causes stiff muscles which makes it virtually impossible to make any sort of movement.

• Athetoid or Dyskinetic Cerebral Palsy: This is the second most common type of this disease and is also known as Athetoid Dyskinetic Cerebral Palsy. In this condition, a person faces problems with the muscle throughout his body. Tight or weak muscle tone can cause uncontrolled and random movements of the body. The child would face problems while sitting, walking and maintaining different postures. Some might also experience problems while controlling their facial muscles
• Ataxic cerebral palsy: In this type of condition, coordination and balance of the body get affected. A person would find it difficult to carry out certain tasks which require fine motor skills. Difficulty in balancing would force the child to work with his feet apart
• Hypotonic Cerebral Palsy: This is a condition which occurs due to an injury caused to the cerebellum. Child would starts experiencing muscle problems at an early stage of his life. His body and head will be floppy. HIs body won't be able to offer any resistance when someone tries to move his Limbs. The child is most likely to experience difficulties in breathing

Unlike paralysis treatment and neck pain treatment, this condition is incurable. However, with the help of medication and different types of therapies, the condition can certainly improve to a great extent.