Talk:Cerebral palsy

I would like to offer my services to provide an update for the page about Cerebral Palsy. I have current epidemiological data, more current information about etiologies and hypotheses about etiologies. Please let me know how to go about submitting a draft for review. I also welcome visitors to our website: www.ucpresearch.org and I welcome questions or comments. Mindy Aisen MD, United Cerebral Palsy Research and Educational Foundation maisen@ucpresearch.org

I have heard that CP means either Cerebral Palsy or Cerebral Pares. What is the difference between these two terms? I'm not a native English speaker.

There are no such things as "cerebral pares" in the English language. The correct term for CP is Cerebral palsy. The closest thing to "pares" would be paresis, which is a state of semi-paralysis. Mortek MC 20:36, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Cerebral Palsy is called Cerebral Pares in Swedish. ("cerebral parese" which is what it's called in my native language, Norwegian). As mentioned, "palsy" is the English term.

Causes of Cerebral Palsy are listed as 75% during pregnancy, 5% childbirth, 15% childhood. Could these numbers be corrected so they add up to 100% please?

---

CP

Please provide some info on cerebral palsy just some basic need to know stuff It is for a school report please reply soon

wow. just wow.

sounds like you are a very serious student. with a request like that it's a wonder you are in school at all. Can cerebral palsy effect your verbal skills to? I know someone with CP and they cant walk or talk. Someone also told me that his therapist said that the person with CP has a mind of a 3 year old and the man with cp is 34

/Yes, CP can affect your verbal skills. Personally, I would doubt the mental retardation diagnosis, since the man can't talk, even though CP can cause learning difficulty.

// No, CP is in NO way connected with mental retardation, and if a therapist told you that they are ignorant of the issue at hand. CP can lead to social deficits, which can lead to poor performance at school and lack of motivation. These can secondarily lead to a lessened IQ, but in no way does CP do this primarily.

/// CP simply refers to a group of conditions that affect motor movement due to damage to the central nervous system. This does not necessarily mean that there will be mental retardation or not. However, given brain damage in the motor areas of the brain, damage in other areas is far more likely. In this way, CP is associated with mental retardation in a proportion of cases, but not all. Another way that CP can cause developmental retardation is through the lack of enrichment to the affected person's environment - as you might imagine, patients with any physical disability get shunned and thus might end up with less learning opportunities.

Topography or Typography?

is this correct usage of 'typography'?:

"Spastic cerebral palsy is further classified by topography, dependent on the region of the body affected. These typography classifications include: (1) hemiplegia (one side being more affected than the other)"

I'm totally confused by the 'C.P as learning disorder' section

~~ I think from looking at the entries for Topography and Typography neither word is being used in anything like the correct context! TOPography relates to geography and TYPography refers to classification of fonts.

lewbrown

~~ True lebrown, but the word topography can also be used in indicating a part of the body.

Broom

~~

Mental Retardation

There is absolutely NO WAY to KNOW the accuracy of the statement "60% of people with CP have mental retardation" since people often have speech difficulties and cannot adequately convey their intelligence; the vast majority have never been tested in any way. Able-bodied people MAKE ASSUMPTIONS based on appearances and/or speech impairments. Thus, people are not even given a CHANCE, and are never educated or even interacted with in a way that would given them the opportunities to develop what they have. This statement is DUBIOUS in the extreme.

Fyi, I have RARELY seen an instance where capitalizing ENTIRE words made AN argument seem more convincing.

~~Absolute nonsense. The author clearly outlines that the mental retardation is related to damage in various parts of the brain. If the brain is damaged, the neurons cannot repair hence it is permanent and therefore it is easy to say from a CT/MRI whether or not someone is more likely to be or will be mentally retarded. If they can't convey language so what, they can still write, see and hear and so should adapt like plenty of able'd blind and deaf people around the world. If these senses are still intact and the child still shows developmental delay there is a high index of suspicion that either they have not received adequate school support or they are indeed mentally retarded. Why do the public seem to think they know better than Doctors, it stuns me.

Damage to the cortex that results in mental retardation is SEPERATE from CP. CP is STRICTLY a motor/sensory deficit. If a lessened IQ is observed in a person with CP it is NOT because of the primary condition, but rather from lack of social support. Damage to the cerebrum that results in mental retardation falls under a DIFFERENT classification than CP. The two can occur at the same time, but this does not mean that they are the same thing. One can have Parkinson's and Alzheimers at the same time, one can have Pneumonia and Herpes at the same time... but it doesn't mean they are the same or related. The above statement "they can still write, see and hear" is complete nonsense, the ability to see, to hear, and to write are all also impaired by CP and "being able to adapt" isn't always possible without proper social support. In these cases these individuals may be, and often are percieved INCORRECTLY as being mentally challenged, when in fact they are not. And this isn't a member of the "public" thinking he knows better than a doctor, this is a second year medical student saying that he knows better than you.

May I state the obvious and say this article needs clean-up? Umalee 19:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Being a second-year medical student has nothing to do with this article. The extremely high prevalence of mental impairment among people with CP is definitely worth noting, no? No need to explain it away with pet theories about socialization. Just as depression is mentioned in the article on anxiety disorders. Why do you think that is? Because there is a very high prevalence of the two conditions together. Anyway, the article does really need a clean-up regardless. -15th March 2007, UB

The two occuring at the same time is extremely common. As such, it is a bit pedantic to get on your soap box about this issue - especially seeing as you mistakenly left sensory in your desciption of CP above as well! ('Palsy' refers to motor deficit.) Essentially, you are correct in saying that CP only describes that there is motor loss involved in the patients condition. However, most people (medicos included) assume that there is a great likelihood of other problems being present, and as such, it is entirely appropriate for wikipedia to address those problems in the article. Dantendo 09:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

As a person with CP, I have to agree. The secondary conditions are very common and should be included. I am a junior in college and suffer from several of them (ie. I have a learning disability)

For clarification on almost ALL of these issues, go to http://www.matheny.org/. It also provides insight into Spina Bifida and Lesch-Nyhan disease. Since Matheny has over one hundred patients, they know what they're talking about

i do find this article very offensive and inaccurate.You discussed the worst case senario with CP children and did not discuss what the cp individual can do. I work for an RDA and know many people with CP and am extremely disgusted with Mental Retardation comments.I am usually quite pleased with wiki and regularly look up information on this site but after reading this article im unsure to support your site anymore.I am sure you will be rectifying the page promtly. 1st/08/07

I find the article very appropriate. When reading about any disease you would never assume that any patient would fit all criteria. The same is true for CP - one should assume in this case that affected people will range from almost completely normal in terms of their physical abilities to some with severe disability. You should assume the same thing with concurrent learning disabilities. Some patients I have seen have been severely disabled in this regard, while some doctors I know have mild CP with spastic hemiparesis.Dantendo 06:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, has it ever occurred to people that when someone has mental retardation as the *primary condition*, that is going to affect their motor skills, so they developed CP symptoms as a result of the same condition that caused the retardation? Good question! However, CP is the primary diagnosis here - generally we can localise areas of the brain that are affected and are causing the motor problems, so you would probably say that these are 'primary' deficits. If they are mentally retarded as well, you could see this as either primary (from associated areas of the brain being damaged as well) or secondary (from less access to learning opportunities). It is important to realise that the motor loss does not necessitate lower mental ability, but that the two problems can be (and often are) associatedDantendo 06:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I added incidence of various comorbidities (including mental retardation, found at 31%) from the SCPE multi-country register database. Because of that, I'm deleting the reference that was previously there, which listed incidence of mental retardation from Norway only (also at 31%). I wanted to paste it here though so that the reference wasn't lost:

One recent study found mental retardation in 31% of children diagnosed with CP.

References

CerebralMom 01:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Childhood disorder that lasts a lifetime

We would not consider Deaf individuals or those with blindness since birth to have a childhood disease/disorder/disability. And since CP lasts into adulthood, it seems very inaccurate to call it a "common childhood physical disability."

Lastly, "common" is inspecific language. I will make both changes.

Brian johnnygofaster@gmail.XXnospam.comXX

Pentaplegia

This term is used in the article; the only reference I was able to find to it in Google is the article itself, and several dictionaries don't contain it. If it is a word, I apologize, but if it isn't it should be replaced with a description (i.e. paralysis of upper and lower limbs and of the face, for example). I'd fix it, but I can't verify that it isn't one. Please fix it if you're more knowledgeable than I! -Lakmiseiru 04:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem solved. I deleted it. --Umalee 17:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I did a simple Google search for "pentaplegia" and it turned up 1,710 matches. It was defined on the first match. Dictionaries typically do not list obscure medical terms. Seems like a legitimate word to me. Perhaps you misspelled it when searching in google? Or perhaps I misunderstood your point?Dculberson 18:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

   Either a definition in the text, or a link to the definition, would seem to be appropriate here, as pentaplegia is not a term commonly found or understood.  --Cvsheid 00:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Un-famous famous people

Four of the people listed under "Famous People with cerebral palsy" are red-linked. They can't be that famous if we don't have even a stub for them. I am going to remove them from the list, but here they are if someone wants to do some research.

• Ben Comen, a cross country runner
• Michael Kutcher, Fraternal twin of actor Ashton Kutcher
• Charlotte Pierse, Sister of Sarah Pierse who starred in the movie Heavenly Creatures
• Lisa Dennis, Actress/poet and writer who lives in the Northeast of England.

Matt Deres 02:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That's absurd - I add folks and havent added a stub because I'm busy, give us a week between edits... Uppitycrip 22:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

famous Australian comedian with CP

In Australia we have a very popular comedian who goes by the stage name of Steady Eddy, he is listed on Wikipedia. He has amused and outraged both the able bodied and the disabled. His comic style 'takes the piss' (to use an Aussie term) out of people with disabilities. I guess its OK for people with disabilities to make jokes about their problem but would be seen in poor taste if done by an able bodied person. Anyway I think he is pretty funny and its a bit of an Aussie thing to have a laugh at your own situation, no matter how dire. Basspick 12:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

is it true that people can die from cerebral palsy?

RE: People do not die from CP. If they die it is from a secondary condition that may be intensified in severity by the person's CP.

'r'?

are there supposed to be four 'r's following the word Ataxic in the beginning of the article?

Differential Diagnosis

Hi. Im wondering if anyone could add this aspect of Cerebral palsy to the Wiki. Im searching for information about it but im having a hard time finding it. As natural i turned my eyes to wikipedia to see if i could get any wiser, but the wiki leaks this theme.

I know from my turns at the hospital that some spinal cord tumors can have similar symptoms as Cerebral Palsy and some neuromuscular illness can also have the Cerebral Palsy pattern.

Anyone that can set up an article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by KingOfSofa (talk • contribs) 13:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Pronunciation

I am not going to vandalize the article to explain this, but it is a HUGE pet peeve of mine that the standard pronunciation of the term "cerebral palsy" (in the US and Canada, at least) is "SEH-reh-bral palsy", instead of "seh-REE-bral palsy", this despite the standard, recognized pronunciation of the word "cerebral" in all other contexts.

Let it be known! I am done here.

-- Zweifel 08:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make sense to include BOTH pronounciation alternatives? Cvsheid 00:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism & Sources

This article copies, word for word, several sources, including one that shows up on the first page of Google.

Several of the sources appear to be rather unreliable, since they have grammaticla errors and appear very unprofessional. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tetty2 (talk • contribs) 22:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

I deleted several passages that were plagiarized verbatim from Cerebral Palsy: A guide for care. One section, in "Terms to use," I replaced with a properly cited block quote, one, in "Prognosis" I did not. I will come back within the week to add prognosis info from the Gross Motor Function Classification. CerebralMom 17:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Question?

Is cerebral palsy hereditary?

short answer : NO, however there are some extremely rare circumstances where blood type incompadability can cause a predisposition to CP (i believe it's some sort of incompadibe blood type disorder. for the life of me i can remember where i read it, MAYBE pubmed?)

not near my library. no idea where i would track it all down.

Uppitycrip 20:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

JAMA lists the following as risk factors for CP:

1. Infection of the mother, including rubella (German measles), during pregnancy
2. Premature birth—premature babies have immature brain tissue that is susceptible to injury from low oxygen or low blood sugar
3. Inadequate oxygen or blood flow to the brain in the mother's womb
4. Rh disease—mother and fetus have incompatible blood proteins; Rh disease can be prevented by immunization of the mother at appropriate times
5. Congenital (birth) defects and genetic (inherited) factors
6. Head trauma (including shaken baby syndrome)
7. Severe jaundice (yellowing) in the newborn baby—a buildup of chemicals that may harm an infant's developing brain

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296/13/1684

CerebralMom 17:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup tag removal?

I'm going to suggest we remove the cleanup tag from this article. It seems to be well written, formatted, and linked correctly now. I have made a note in my diary to remove this tag in 2 weeks. If anyone has any objections, please feel free to reply here. --Zaf^(t) 05:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

redundent

spastic quadriplegia (Whole body affected; all four limbs affected equally). Some children with quadriplegia also suffer from hemiparetic tremors; an uncontrollable shaking that affects the limbs on one side of the body and impairs normal movement. A common problem with children suffering from quadriplegia is fluid buildup. Diuretics and steroids are medications administered to decrease any buildup of fluid in the spine that is caused by leakage from dead cells. Hardened feces in a quadriplegia patient are important to monitor because it can cause high blood pressure. Autonomic dysreflexia can be caused by hardened feces, urinary infections, and other problems, resulting in the overreaction of the nervous system and can result in high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes. Blockage of tubes inserted into the body to drain or enter fluids also needs to be monitored to prevent autonomic dysreflexia in quadriplegia. The proper functioning of the digestive system needs to be monitored as well.

There are significant differences between spinal cord quadriplegia and Cerebral Palsy quadripledgia. Some of these issues are people with cp can feel and do not have a risk for autonomic dyreflexia. most of this info is used for spinal cord injury. NOT severe CP.

Uppitycrip 21:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC) could be fixed mabye

timmer 03:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC) timmer

Bwthemoose 22:14, 17 June 2007 (UTC)While autonomic dysreflexia is not usually seen in CP, this is not to say that constipation andobstipation are not problems, which in severe cases can lead to bowel obstruction. There is a difference in pathophysiology between CP,and spinal cord injury which makes for the abscence of autonomic dysreflexia in CP.

redundancy in "sensory impairment, vision and hearing impairment" so "vision and hearing impairment" were removed from last sentence in SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS 198.133.139.5 11:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

"pronounciation:sair-a-bral pal-z"

Is this the British pronunciation because I'm pretty sure the American pronunciation would be "se-reebral pal-zee"... Yonatan ^talk 00:24, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Both pronounciations are correct, could be a different like a dialect. I have cp and use both interchangeablyUppitycrip 20:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The statement,"Overall, CP ranks among the most costly congenital conditions in the world to manage effectively." is 1)unsubstantiated, and 2)pejorative, since it seems to make the cost of their care an issue in their overall treatment. This probably wasn't intentional. Perhaps a list of the yearly or one time costs of various congenital conditions would help.Bwthemoose 20:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Tone warning

I've added the tone tag to one section, specifically because of use of the phrase, "You must remember" and for the superfluous and incorrect use of dashes. The way most of this bit reads reminds me of how a mother of a CP child educates other people about their child's condition, not how an encyclopedia educates the masses. And where are all of the citations? That certainly doesn't help the cause, almost oas if someone is simply stating, "It's so because I totally know a person with CP and this is what's wrong, so just believe me because I know and you don't." You'd think an article on a medical condition would be better referenced than this. --ScreaminEagle 18:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I've attempted to clean up the Misconceptions section to have a neutral tone. I've also removed the tone warning. Agent Conundrum 08:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

thanks very much i noticed that the article concentrate mainly - as regard presentation- upon bone deformities ! whit about other manifestations ? whit about eary diagnosis in infant?

---

lastly i hope to intoduce laguage review and alphabetical correction

with my best wishes dr. adel m.shokr pediatricin ashokr59@hotmail.com

I assume you are talking about the 'misconceptions' section.... I too think that the tone was a little too didactic. I get the impression that the author had a bit of a bee in his/her bonnet about people assuming that people with CP will be mentally retarded. This is justified - there probably are too many people making this assumption - but the fact is that in many badly affected people there is concommitant learning disability. I think that this section can probably be rewritten to address this (in fact, I think that other sections of this article do a very good job in addressing this and this section may not even be needed....Dantendo 06:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

External links

I've just deleted the link to the "CP video blog," a site with currently just a handful of video blogs and no "about us" or contact information.

I am more than happy to come back at a later date and add some links to reputable, unbiased sources of clinical information on CP (it's on my "to do" list after some higher priority tasks on the CP page). I do not think it appropriate to list such minor resources, particularly ones with strong commercial ties, until there are also a handful of reputable, non-commercial sites listed.

CerebralMom 04:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I re-added the link to UCP, also including a brief intro to who UCP is and the info they have on their site.

I just found the time when the links were deleted in favor of the Open Directory link per MEDMOS. While I understand the stated guideline and rationale to "avoid External Link farms," the Open Directory link for CP is ... not as helpful as it could be for people who are looking for more information on CP. While the Open Directory page for other conditions may be better, in the case of CP's page, of the dozen or so links given for CP, several are non-attributed websites, several are commercial sites, and several are private or small websites that have not been updated in years. In this case, I don't think that the Open Directory page is complete enough to be a substitute for a small listing of authoritative, non-biased, non-commercial sources of information on CP. CerebralMom 06:17, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe the above info on the UCP site and the info given on the CP page for that link fits the Wikipedia External Links guidelines, which state: "If you link to another website, you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant to the article in question."

Miraculously, the link to the "CP Video Blog" has appeared again.

I have deleted it again, for the following reasons:

• The website itself is unattributed; there is no “about us” page nor contact information.
• The website does not appear to conform to the Wikipedia External links guidelines
• The doctor who is the subject of most of the video blogs is Zev Gershon, “a physician and an attorney, concentrating in medical malpractice, specifically medical malpractice involving cerebral palsy cases.”

CerebralMom 06:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Treatment

I've deleted the reference given for the biofeedback entry, because the article cited does not show positive effects of biofeedback on people with CP. From the article's abstract:

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of biofeedback-assisted relaxation training on self-reported pain and muscle tension in 3 adults with CP using a multiple baseline design across subjects. Two of 3 participants reported decreases in their pain experiences posttreatment. Their subjective reports, however, did not correspond with physiological changes. Complications in the use of progressive relaxation exercises and EMG biofeedback equipment are described and suggestions for future research provided.

CerebralMom 12:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

References

CerebralMom 11:56, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Disease vs. Disorder

The very first sentence in this article is wrong. CP is a birth defect, NOT a disease. All my life, I've heard that what I have is a birth defect, and I've just confirmed this @ http://www.scope.org.uk/information/cp.shtml, which states "Cerebral palsy (cp) is not a disease or an illness. It is the description of a physical impairment that affects movement. The movement problems vary from barely noticeable to extremely severe. No two people with cp are the same; it is as individual as people themselves."--John R. Sellers 19:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)