Spastic Cerebral Palsy
Spastic Cerebral Palsy – A form of cerebral palsy that causes tightness in the muscles. Because of this tightness, spastic cerebral palsy patients have a difficult time controlling their movement.
Spastic CP is the most common form and affects the body’s ability to relax muscles, causing tightness and difficulties in movement. Spastic cerebral palsy affects around 70 percent of children with cerebral palsy.
When both legs are affected (spastic diplegia), a child may have difficulty walking because tight muscles in the hips and legs cause legs to turn inward and cross at the knees (called scissoring). In other cases, only one side of the body is affected (spastic hemiplegia), often with the arm more severely affected than the leg. Most severe is spastic quadriplegia, in which all four limbs and the trunk are affected, often along with the muscles controlling the mouth and tongue.
Normally, healthy muscles work together: when one group contracts, the other group relaxes to allow free movement in the intended direction. Muscles in children with spastic cerebral palsy become active together and block effective movement, working against each other.
The degree of muscle spasticity usually changes over time. Physical therapy, surgery, drugs and adaptive equipment may help to control spasticity. Damage to the brain's cerebral cortex is generally the cause of spastic cerebral palsy.
Read More: Types of Cerebral Palsy
"After all the information came out, I was bitter. But eventually I put it in my heart to forgive.
It's not about the money, but it helps a lot, because brain injury causes a lot of problems that
you don't know about early on."
"First, you cry. You bawl. You ask yourself, 'why me?' But then I looked at Nathan and I
thought, 'He's exactly the same kid he was before. Now you just know more.'"
"I would tell anyone who's had an experience like ours to keep asking questions.
Don't let them go unanswered. Get a qualified lawyer to look into your case, and don't give up hope."
"The saddest moment came when Ken told us that if Lizzy had been born any time between when I came
in at 7 a.m. until 10 p.m., she would be fine. The doctor had misread the fetal monitoring strips.
She had made a mistake."
