Cerebral Palsy is a range of neuromuscular disorders caused by injury to an infant's brain sustained during late pregnancy, birth, or any time during the first two years of life. People with cerebral palsy have a wide range of difficulties, from a clumsy walk to an inability to speak or swallow, caused by faulty messages sent from the brain to the muscles. In the mid-1800s, William Little, an English physician, first described cerebral palsy in connection with birth injuries. Approximately 2 per 1000 individuals in the United States have cerebral palsy. Other countries have reported higher rates. Improved obstetric techniques over the past few decades have reduced the likelihood of brain injury during birth. But increased survival of premature infants, those born after only 25 to 37 weeks of pregnancy and weighing less than 2500 grams some of whom develop cerebral palsy, has kept the incidence in the United States fairly stable.From birth, a year or more may pass before the signs of cerebral palsy are recognized and diagnosed. The three most common forms of cerebral palsy are spastic, athetoid, and ataxic. An individual may exhibit a combination of these forms, called the mixed type. Spasticity occurs in about 60 percent of all individuals with cerebral palsy. Symptoms typically include reduced movement due to stiff or permanently contracted muscles. Spasticity is associated with damage to nerve fibers in the brain that carry messages for voluntary motor control. Twenty percent of individuals with cerebral palsy have the athetoid type, characterized by uncontrolled movements. This form of cerebral palsy is caused by injury to brain nerve fibers that are responsible for inhibition of muscle movement. The ataxic type of cerebral palsy is unusual, occurring in only 1 percent of cases. It results when the cerebellum, an area at the base of the brain, is injured. Since the cerebellum maintains balance and precision of body movements, affec...
