Four Current Issues Related to the Treatment of Cerebral Palsy and its Impacts

Cerebral Palsy
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Cerebral Palsy
Abstract
Cerebral palsy is a common neurological disorder among children with prevalence estimates ranging from 1 to nearly 4 per 1,000 children. People with cerebral palsy have movement and posture problems, and in some instances, suffer from seizures, some level of intellectual disability, joint problems, or sensory losses. This diagnostic research paper will provide an overview of the disorder including a description of the condition, current treatment methods, incidence rates, and demographics. It will also outline the functional limitations of cerebral palsy and rehabilitation strategies for the patient before conducting a review of two websites containing information on the neurological disorder. Finally, the diagnostic research paper will discuss four current issues related to the treatment of cerebral palsy along with their impacts.
Overview of Medical Knowledge
Cerebral palsy is described as a group of neurodevelopmental disorders that affect both developmental and motor skills. Therefore, it is not a defined, distinct disease category but a collective term including etiologically dissimilar symptoms that vary with age. As a medical term, cerebral palsy was used for the first time in the mid-1880s by William Little, an English orthopedic surgeon, after associating neonatal hypoxia with muscle spasticity and resulting musculoskeletal deformities (Sadowska et al., 2020). The definition of cerebral palsy has been constantly changed throughout the years, including neurological disorders caused by heterogeneous underlying genetic variants.
Cerebral palsy is caused by non-progressive disturbances, abnormality, or lesion in the maturing infant or fetal brain. The diagnosis of the medical condition is mainly founded on posture and motor function disorders that begin showing at early childhood and continue until the end of life. Breathing, swallowing, and speech muscles may also be involved together with intellectual disabilities and seizures. These disorders are non-progressive but vary with age. The motor disorders of cerebral palsy usually correlate with disturbances of perception, cognition, sensation, communication, and seizure or behavior disorder (Torpy, 2010). Cerebral palsy does not include neurological disorders of the spinal cord or the muscles such as muscular dystrophies, myelomeningocele, or spinal muscular atrophy, which also have similar symptoms. It is critical to identify the primary cause of cerebral palsy syndrome, particularly in instances of metabolic or genetic disorders that have particular disease-alleviating treatment. An accurate diagnosis of the metabolic or genetic disorder has considerable effects on the likelihood of treatment, genetic counseling, and correct prognosis.
While the pathophysiology of cerebral palsy is still unclear, certain events during a child's neural development have been determined as risk factors. Some of the gestational, fetal, postnatal, or maternal factors that increase the likelihood of cerebral palsy include brain injury, prematurity and post-maturity, abnormal brain development, cerebral leukomalacia, preventricular-intraven...