lovethattink said:
Why he drags his feet when he's tired, why he has trouble with motor coordination, why he's clumsy and has so many accidents.
In the way past, most kids with those types of symptoms probably never got diagnosed with CP (cerebral palsy) and there are probably still quite a few kids with mild CP who are never diagnosed. They were/are just the clumsy, accident prone kids who are never going to be stars of the football team. Kids with mild CP usually get Occupational and Physical Therapy to help them learn to work with whatever problems they have, stretch tight muscles and strengthen weak ones. For small children, a lot of the therapy is games or play done in specific ways.
There are no specific tests that 'prove' CP. It's more of a 'rule out other things and if nothing else is proved and the symptoms fit, call it CP'.
Mild just refers to how much involvement there seems to be. (Involvement means how much of the body is affected and how severly it is affected). The less involved someone is, the less likely they are to be diagnosed at all and more likely to be diagnosed later in life.
Some children are known to be at higher risk of having CP - infants with low birth weight, prematurity or multiple births (twins, triplets, etc), certain maternal problems during the pregnancy. In those cases, the doctor may be looking more for signs of CP than they would be otherwise.
My youngest DD was at hight risk of CP because of low birth weight (although she was overdue, not premature) and problems I had during the pregnancy. She was seen by a neonatologist (specialist in newborn care) in the hospital, who didn't find anything specific wrong and turned over care to our pediatrician.
My DD was pretty much able to do everything on schedule - rolling over, sitting up, etc. until she got to the point of walking, which she was not able to do at her 18 month check up. At that point, the doctor wasn't worried and didn't want to do anything - "some babies don't walk until after 18 months."
I had had suspicions before that which I had mentioned to him at each visit. Although she was doing what she was supposed to be doing on the correct schedule, she was NOT doing anything well - like she could get herself to sitting, but was not stable and fell over pretty easily.
(I was working as a Public Health Nurse, visiting babies that were at hight risk for problems and doing basic developmental screening tests). One of my 'ah-ha' moments was actually at WDW, when DD was 11 months old. They had different strollers at that time; one day we decided to rent one instead of taking our own stroller. DD could not sit up in the WDW stroller while it was moving because she didn't have enough support. We ended up ditching the stroller and using our soft carrier for her instead. That was when I really
knew something was wrong. One of the other things that led us to that conclusion was that we had lots of people looking at her whenever we slowed down on our trip. (She was a pretty baby with big brown eyes and dimples, very social and engaging). Anyway, quite a few people guessed her correct age (or a bit older) and asked if she had been premature because she was still so tiny. There is nothing like a lot of people saying you have a cute baby,
but...... to make you take a good look at your baby.
The doctor pooh-poohed my concerns at her 1 year exam, just like he had before (he actually said I was 'looking for problems' because of what I did for my job). At 18 months, I
demanded a referral to a neurologist (we had an HMO and I could not take DD to see one without a referral). The neurologist spent about 3 minutes looking at my DD before she pronounced DD had CP.
My DD's CP is considered moderate to severe (more on the severe end of the scale). Her actual type of CP is considered "mixed" because she has elements of spasticity (tightness of the muscles), hypotonia (muscles that are too floppy), ataxia (problems with depth perception and balance), and dyskinetic movements (some of her muscles uncontrollably move in a writhing motion). She is not able to talk, but understands well. She was able to walk with a walker and even with arm crutches for very short distances when she was very small. Once she got taller, her center of gravity changed and it got a lot harder for her to stay balanced enough to walk. As a result, she stopped using a walker.
She is a good example of moderate to severe CP. As I already mentioned, many people with mild CP will have very mild symptoms.
Here are some good websites:
Some (but definately not all) people with CP
may have some learning disabilities or special educational needs because of their CP. In general, the more involved someone is, the more likely the are to have other problems. There are always exceptions though. One of the young ladies in my DD's dance class has more severe CP than my DD has, so you might expect severe learning problems, but she was on the honor roll thru high school.
Many people with mild CP don't have special needs other than related to movement - in fact, my DD's first Orthopedic doctor had gotten into orthopedics because he has mild CP that affected one side of his body. As a child, he had surgery to the leg on that side and decided he wanted to help other kids with CP.
Anyway, this is very long and may be a lot more than you need right now.
Just finishing with a bunch of
