Cerebral Palsy Overview

Cerebral Palsy overview is an article which gives a bird’s eye view of cerebral palsy. I want to tell you a story of how I came across cerebral palsy through the birth of our daughter and how I learnt some facts and myths about the condition.

I did not know cerebral palsy all my life until after my daughter was born in 1989. After she was born it took us a while to realise that our daughter was missing certain milestones such as sitting on her own and talking. When we took her to a medical consultant for examinations that is when we were told that she had cerebral palsy and there was very little we could do to reverse the condition.

To understand this condition better, I had to do some research and I found out that William Little and Sigmund Freud discovered cerebral palsy.

The causes of cerebral palsy are many and one of the main causes is lack of oxygen to the brain for a baby during pregnancy or at birth. It is a condition and not a disease and is not infectious.

Some of the risk factors are premature birth and underweight babies. To prevent cerebral palsy one has to attend regular medical checks during pregnancy although this is not a guarantee but at least it minimise the chances of the occurrence of cerebral palsy.

One of the main misconceptions about cerebral play is that all persons with this condition cannot have independent living. This is not true, some persons with this condition live independently with ease The status of independent living is a journey and one has to work towards this target. One has to constantly do something about the condition ,especially some regular physiotherapy exercises.

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