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  • Updated 06.05.2024
  • Released 02.07.1994
  • Expires For CME 06.05.2027

Cerebral palsy

Introduction

Overview

Cerebral palsy describes a group of genetic and acquired childhood neurologic disorders characterized by abnormalities in tone, posture, and movement as a result of early injury to the developing brain. Cerebral palsy is often associated with language and intellectual disability, social impairment, epilepsy, other organ system involvement, and functional limitations. An appropriate diagnostic assessment and resource environment is important to ensure proper treatment and management. Neuroprotective strategies, including therapeutic hypothermia and adjuvant therapy, have been shown to reduce morbidity and mortality caused by hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, including cerebral palsy. In this article, the author discusses the many aspects of diagnosing and managing cerebral palsy.

Key points

• Cerebral palsy describes a group of nonprogressive genetic and acquired childhood neurologic disorders characterized by abnormalities in tone, posture, and movement as a result of injury to the developing brain.

• Although characterized by their motor dysfunction, children with cerebral palsy frequently have other associated impairments, which include language delay, seizures, strabismus, dysphagia, orthopedic deformities, and cognitive problems.

• Advances in neuroimaging and genetics promise to further the understanding of the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of cerebral palsy.

• Effective management of cerebral palsy requires a team with medical and rehabilitative specialists to provide careful, ongoing neurodiagnostic evaluation and rehabilitation to maximize functional capabilities.

• Neuroprotective strategies, chiefly therapeutic hypothermia, have demonstrated decreased death and disability related to cerebral palsy.

Historical note and terminology

Cerebral palsy describes a group of nonprogressive genetic and acquired childhood neurologic disorders characterized by abnormalities in tone, posture, and movement as a result of injury to the developing brain (147; 87; 20).

Debates surrounding the nomenclature, definition, and etiology of cerebral palsy continue. In the mid-1800s, Sir William Little proposed that cerebral palsy was related to difficult childbirth (164). In recent decades, this view has had significant medical and legal implications (187). In the late 1800s, Freud wrote, "Difficult birth, in certain cases, is merely a symptom of deeper effects that influence the development of the fetus" (81). This view suggested that cerebral palsy had a prenatal onset. The late 19th century brought further insight as Sir William Osler published his lectures, The Cerebral Palsies of Children, classifying the disorder by neuroanatomy, etiology, and extremity involvement (202).

The Collaborative Perinatal Project, a landmark American maternal and child health epidemiologic research study, demonstrated that the events of labor and delivery are not major contributors to the occurrence of cerebral palsy or most other neurodevelopmental disorders. Rather, most of these conditions originated before labor begins (192). Prenatal factors have emerged as the chief determinants of risk for cerebral palsy (29).

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