Cerebral palsy and mental retardation

Cerebral palsy

Here only a part of the brain that controls the coordination and posture is affected. The affected children cannot speak, walk, crawl, eat, and swallow properly. These disabilities are due to the disturbance in the motor nerve function.

The major cause of this cerebral palsy is injury to the brain of the child before delivery. Occationally the injury caused to the brain after the delivery of the baby also results in cerebral palsy.

Mental retardation

This developmental abnormality is more common in children who are below eighteen years of age. The affected person will have less intellectual functioning than the average children. As the result there will be significant limitations in skill of the affected persons.

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is noticed in children with cerebral palsy and/or mental retardation.
Epilepsy is a Greek word which means attack or seize. The modern world is not considering the epilepsy as a disease but as an indication or symptom of the disturbance in the structure or functioning of the brain. The affected person will have seizures.

Epilepsy is on of the most important disorder of the nervous system that can be seen both in cerebral palsy and mental retardation. Nearly four to ten percent children are affected with epilepsy out of 1000 children in a year.

Out of the 4- 10 % of epilepsy cases nearly fifteen to thirty percent are due to cerebral palsy and mental retardation. Hence the patients and clinicians who are dealing with mental retardation and cerebral palsy need to have complete knowledge about epilepsy.

Cerebral palsy, mental retardation and epilepsy are due to the functional and structural disturbances of central nervous system. If epilepsy is noticed in children who are already affected with cerebral palsy and mental retardation, the risk is more when compared with the epilepsy of general population.

The epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy and mental retardation will have few characteristics. They are listed below. The on set of the epilepsy will be early. The frequency of seizure will be high in initial stages. Multiple seizure types will be present.

The resistance for the drug will be more, hence polytherapy may be required.The remission rate will be lower. The incidence of the seizures will be more if the treatment is stopped. The rate of intractable epilepsy will be high.

The death due to epilepsy will be in case of children who are suffering with cerebral palsy or mental retardation when compared with the death due to epilepsy in general population.

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