Cerebral Palsy & Occupational Therapy Treatment

Cerebral palsy is a neuro-diverse condition in which the brain gets damaged in early childhood. Cerebral palsy is a non-progressive brain lesion in an immature brain. i.e. before two years of age. It could be due to prenatal, perinatal or post-natal issues in infants or mothers. A child with cerebral palsy varies in their mental capacity from profound mental retardation to mild learning disability. Early diagnosis of CP is key to successful rehabilitation. Diagnosis of CP is done mainly based on clinical presentation. Some medical investigations like CT scans, MRI & EEG are also useful in confirming the diagnosis. If children come with developmental issues, which start within two years of life & there is no specific disease associated with it then we can diagnose them as cerebral palsy. Gross motor & fine motor skills are major areas in assessing cerebral palsy. Other than that muscle tone, balance, deformity, sensory issues, cognitive issues, behavioural issues, Oro-motor issues, and primitive reflexes are also important when we do assessment. In the past, there was the tendency to see only the deformity present in children with CP and treatment was done by the orthopaedic surgeon & occupational therapist accordingly. But nowadays we evaluate children with CP with a holistic approach in with a team of Medical professionals, Occupational therapists, Physiotherapists, Speech therapists, Special educators, and Child psychologists work together.

Nowadays many approaches are used by occupational therapists to treat cerebral palsy like neurodevelopmental therapy, sensory integration therapy, biomechanical therapy, model of human occupation, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, roots approach, task-oriented approach, constraint-induced movement therapy, bilateral hand activity, Visio-perceptual-skills training, splints & orthotic devices, gait training, trunk control activity, handwriting skills training.

Cerebral palsy may also be associated with other higher-centre problems like vision issues, hearing difficulties, cognitive-perceptual difficulties like apraxia (Problem in motor planning), Left-right discrimination, dyslexia (difficulty in writing), dyscalculia, stereognosis (ability to identify the shapes and form of a three-dimensional object), problems in manual ability, sensory discrimination issues, behavioural issues, abnormal primitive reflexes. During the initial assessment, we need to assess the problems associated with the kid. When setting short-term & long-term goals for children with cerebral palsy we need to consider the above aspect too.

There are many causes of cerebral palsy low birth weight, premature birth, delayed birth cry, abnormal development of the brain, anoxia, hypoxia, intracranial bleeding, excessive neonatal jaundice, seizures, trauma during delivery, infections, microcephaly, hydrocephalus. The aetiology of cerebral palsy has no direct relationship with treatment plans. But it helps in the classification of cerebral palsy, for instance, if a child have a history of neonatal jaundice then there are chances of Athetoid CP. In the same way, if the child is premature or has a history of low birth weight then there is the chance of a fragile infant. Infants with microcephaly may have a poor prognosis.

To recognize the abnormal motor development & cognitive development of infants, occupational therapists should know about the normal development of kids at various stages of life. Age-appropriate challenges are key to success in achieving the goal of rehabilitation. Under-challenging play activity reduces the interest of kids while over-challenging activities make them anxious to the kids and they try to avoid the situation. Designing appropriate activities with fun & challenges is of utmost importance for rehabilitation.

For more information contact: https://www.rosalinchilddevelopment.com/cerebral-palsy-treatment-in-lucknow

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