8 Treatments For Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy affects people specially babies of any age. Doctors may detect the symptoms of cerebral palsy in your new born too. To get the best form of health and treatment, your child will require coordinated care from a team of doctors with the growing years. Cerebral palsy affects many of the body functions such as speech, movements, brain development etc.

So it is usually recommended by doctors to go for a host of treatments in such a medical condition. There are many forms of treatment that ranges from speech correction to psychotherapy. In this article we will try to discuss a few of the treatment procedures to cure young children and people of such a disease.

List Of Treatments Therapies

There are many therapies that are recommended for treating a cerebral palsy child. These therapies are listed as occupational therapy, exercise therapy, Hippotherapy or horseback riding, speech and language therapy. Apart from these there is the Therapeutic electrical stimulation (TES).

Occupational Therapy

In occupational therapy, the therapist employs techniques for developing the motor skills in the child and other daily living activities. It focuses majorly on the hands and legs.

Exercise Therapy

Here the therapist aims at making your child do exercises that would increase the flow of blood to the rain. These can be in the form of any indoor game or outdoor activity such as swimming.

Hippotherapy

Hippotherapy or horseback riding form of treatment is used to improve movement dysfunction in the child with cerebral palsy.

Here the horse’s movements control the patient. This helps in building senses for movement in the troubled child.

Speech And Language Therapy

It is used to improve communication by helping the child develop co ordination between his or her mouth and tongue.

Therapeutic Electrical Stimulation (TES)

This is a relatively new form of treatment that is administered in the patient in his sleep. It helps in building more muscle fiber in the child as in cerebral palsy the muscle tissues do not function properly.

Medications

Apart from the therapies some medications are also prescribed by doctors for the cerebral palsy patients. Specifically three categories of medications are prescribed by physicians.

These are Diazepam, Baclofen, and Dantrolene. Diazepam or Valium helps in total body relaxation lessening muscle contractions. Baclofen helps to control spasticity while Dantrolene interferes in the contraction mechanisms of the muscles.

Sometimes injections such as alcohol washes are given to reduce spasticity. Drugs are normally avoided by physicians as there can be side effects because of long term usage.

Nutrition

People with cerebral palsy may not receive adequate nutrition as they have difficulty in chewing and swallowing. So doctors can recommend surgical procedures such as inserting a gastrostomy feeding tubemal nourishment is also a problem as the children often vomit out whatever they are fed because of poor digestion. So you need to be very careful with their diet and must feed only those products that have been recommended by the physician.

Surgery

Surgeries are performed to correct postures such as for sitting. Skeletal deformities are also corrected using surgeries in such patients.