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Overview
What Are the Characteristics of Cerebral Palsy?Cerebral Palsy is a brain injury that affects the parts of the brain that deal with the muscles and movement. It is not contagious and is not considered a disease or an illness. Although its characteristics are easy to recognize, but it is diagnosed by physicians.
Identification
In most cases, cerebral palsy is caused before, during, or after birth. The time that the brain injury occurred is not always known, especially if the injury happened in utero. Sometimes cerebral palsy is a result of a doctor's carelessness, and other times it is the result of an infection, such as meningitis. It can also be the result of bleeding or swelling on the brain. Cerebral palsy can also be caused by trauma, such as a baby being dropped. Cerebral palsy is broken down in to three categories: spastic, athetoid, and ataxic.
Spastic Cerebral Palsy
Spastic cerebral palsy is the most common type. People affected by it suffer from tight muscles. Some individuals only experience tight muscles on one side of the body, while other experience it in their lower limbs. Still a third group experiences tightening over all four limbs. The characteristics of this form of cerebral palsy are stiff movements, jerky movements, gait, strabismus, tongue thrusting, and drooling.
Athetoid Cerebral Palsy
Athetoid cerebral palsy is challenging because people affected by it cannot control their movements or their muscles. They have trouble sitting upright and getting their hands to pick something up when they want them too. Characteristics of athetoid cerebral palsy include difficulty walking, standing up, holding or picking up objects, controlling movements (including certain facial movements) and talking.
Ataxic Cerebral Palsy
Ataxic cerebral palsy is the least common of the three types. It is known for its jerky movements as with spastic, but its sufferers are more uncoordinated than stiff. This is because of the effect on the eyes. The characteristics for ataxic cerebral palsy are trouble with depth perception, trouble balancing, shaky body parts, trouble writing, unsteady walking, and sometimes trouble processing what they hear.
Diagnosis
Cerebral palsy can be diagnosed a couple of ways. A doctor may diagnose a baby based on the symptoms she observes. The doctor may look to see if the infant has missed any important milestones or if the baby is demonstrating difficulty using their muscles to sit up, roll over, or stand up. The doctor may also use some tests to diagnose the baby. A CAT Scan and MRI can show brain injuries. An EEG can show if there is any abnormal activity in the brain. The doctor may also want to order some blood tests to make sure that there isn't another cause of the baby's symptoms.
