What is Cerebral Palsy?
Cerebral Palsy (CP) is essentially a movement disorder. The term covers a group of conditions caused by injury to or abnormal development in the parts of the brain that control body movement and muscle coordination. The brain lesion often occurs during foetal development, but may also take place during, or shortly after birth; or during infancy up to 2 yrs old. The brain abnormalities do not get worse; however, the effects may change over time e.g. mobility may improve initially but then deteriorates later as the child gets heavier with development of contractures (permanent shortening of a muscle or tendon making it hard to stretch the area and preventing normal movement.)
Current official definition (2006)
A major international consensus conference was held in 2006 when the definition and classification of CP was re-examined and agreed by experts. It is useful to note that from this conference the new definition of cerebral palsy is as follows -:
- (CP) describes a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, that are attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing foetal or infant brain.
- The motor disorders of cerebral palsy are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, perception, cognition, communication, and behaviour, by epilepsy and by secondary musculo-skeletal problems.
Incidence & Prevalence
(CP) is the most common physical disability in childhood. In the Western world, the condition occurs with a frequency of 2-2.5 of every 1000 live born children, but this is higher in premature and twin births. However, the greater majority of children with cerebral palsy are born at full term, as the actual number of premature births is small in comparison with full term births.
