Cerebral Palsy Symptoms - Signposts to Look Out For

The first three years of your child’s life are some of the most important when looking out for cerebral palsy symptoms.

Cerebral palsy is a disease with no known complete cure and which affects the formation of the brain, creating various muscle problems from hypotonia or the excessive softness of the muscles and the general inability to contract or form resistance, to hypertonia, which is characterized by excessively rigid muscles.

Here are several of the important symptoms to watch out for if you have reason to believe that your child may develop or have cerebral palsy.

Abnormal motor skills

The most important cerebral palsy symptoms to watch out for during the first three years is the child’s ability to perform normal activity such as developing sensory-motor skills such as lifting his or her head after a few months, beginning to crawl, then eventually learning to walk, and the ability to talk. These are all activities which require muscle functioning, and the impairment of these can often mean that the person is either hypotonic or hypertonic.

Uneven development

Another cerebral palsy symptom to watch out for is uneven bodily development. In general, victims of cerebral palsy have sections of the brain which are affected by malformation during the pregnancy stage or shortly after childbirth.

When the left side of the brain is damaged, often the manifestations are seen in the right side, and vice versa. Beware if your child is having difficulty in moving either both left limbs or both right ones, because this may be a sign of cerebral palsy. The disease can also affect other extremities such as the legs and the head.

If your child has the scissor gait or walks with bent knees and hips, this may be a sign. Worse is if the scissor gait is compounded by crossed eyes, which means that the optical muscles are unable to focus the eyeballs.

Particular symptoms

In spastic cerebral palsy, scoliosis may also develop alongside hypertonia, and should be swiftly diagnosed for proper treatment. Other variants cerebral palsy symptoms happen to particular palsy diseases, such as ataxic cerebral palsy where the victim develops vision depth and field impairment, or the inability to position one’s self in relation to objects around him. Tremors and involuntary shaking are also often found in those afflicted with ataxic cerebral palsy.

On the other hand, athetoid cerebral palsy symptoms include malformation in the cerebellum creating a combination of both hypertonia and hypotonia, which results in uncontrollable motion for the victim, making simple things such as picking up an object very difficult.

It is also not uncommon for victims of athetoid cerebral palsy to be droolers with difficulty in swallowing and speaking, because the vocal chords and the tongue are often also affected by the disease. In worst cases, this can lead to the inability to breathe because of lack of muscle control in some important muscles in the neck.

Look for help

Once cerebral palsy symptoms are detected early on, there are many foundations today which you can go to for help. Various research and development foundations for cerebral palsy are available for you to turn to.

These groups help not only victims by sharing tips on how to ease the life for the ill, but also provide advice for guiding the family members dealing with the disease.

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Cerebral Palsy Symptoms

cerebral palsy signs and symptoms

Cerebral Palsy Symptoms - Signposts to Look Out For

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