In Spain, between 10,000 and 15,000 children suffer from cerebral palsy | Leader in Social Information
In Spain, between 10,000 and 15,000 children under the age of 18 suffer from cerebral palsy, giving a prevalence of 1.5 to 2.5 cases per 1,000 people.
This was announced this Friday by the Spanish Society of Child Neurology (Senep) on the occasion of World Cerebral Palsy Day, which is celebrated this Sunday.
He warned that today, “many cases are diagnosed late due to lack of care from a pediatrician specializing in neuropediatrics.”
According to President Cenepa Rocío Sánchez-Carpintero, cerebral palsy is a disease that requires early diagnosis, early care, certain medications such as botulinum toxin, physiotherapy, rehabilitation, speech and occupational therapy, as well as various supports for learning and activities of daily living.
“Therefore, rapid diagnosis and early treatment are necessary, which depends on the examination of children by a neuropediatrician in the first year of life,” he noted.
He explained that cerebral palsy is a motor control disorder caused by early, non-progressive brain damage that is often, although not always, associated with epilepsy and mental retardation. In fact, “there are people with cerebral palsy who have completely normal intelligence,” he said.
This pathology leads to the inability to walk or significant difficulty in doing so, he continued, which makes daily living activities more difficult due to interference with movement. “This usually occurs due to spasticity (increased muscle tone, rigidity), dystonia (impaired coordination of muscle contractions) or the presence of abnormal movements that interfere with the person’s voluntary activity,” he noted.
MULTIFACTORIAL CAUSES
The causes of cerebral palsy are typically multifactorial, and risk factors are well known: prematurity, distress at birth, perinatal infarctions, infections during pregnancy, childhood meningitis, and head trauma.
According to President Cenepa, other genetic changes are now becoming known “that lead to changes in brain development, affecting, among other things, motor areas.” “The neuropediatrician identifies this pathology by observing early signs of motor development that may have been previously detected by the child’s pediatrician.”
In his opinion, “it is the neuropediatrician who must prescribe the necessary examinations to find out the causes and confirm the diagnosis.” In addition, this specialist “identifies and can treat commonly associated problems: epilepsy, mental retardation, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, spasticity, gastroesophageal reflux or constipation, and others,” he concluded.