Cerebral palsy medications

Cerebral palsy is the disease that affects the children. Though the onset of disease and symptom will be as early as the baby is born, you could diagnose the disease only when the child is at least 3-4 years older.

The affecter child will have completed in coordination of the movement as the motor skills are totally disturbed. The part that controls the movement and posture of the child is affected due to injury that happens during the late pregnancy or at the time of birth.

Cerebral palsy cannot be cured. There are various treatment options to reduce the severity of the symptoms. Let us discuss about the cerebral palsy medications here.

There are so many drugs are used for the treatment of cerebral palsy symptoms. These medications are used to control the spasticity which is one of the main symptoms of cerebral palsy. These drugs are in general administered after the surgery.

Diazepam is one of the three drugs that are used in the treatment of spasticity. This drug is by far the best relaxant of the brain and the body. Beclofen is the famous medication that is used on patients with cerebral palsy.

This drug this drug reduces the spasticity by blocking the signals that are sent to the muscle from the spinal cord. The other popular drug that is used my many people is dantrolene. This drug reduces the muscle contraction by interfering with the process of muscle contraction.

All the above mentioned drugs are administered orally. These drugs or medications are very effective for controlling the spasticity for short period. How effective these medications for long term use is the question that needs to be answered as till date the long term effectiveness of these three drugs were not demonstrated. There are ofcourse side effects such as drowsiness, blurring of vision etc when you use these drugs.

Patients with athetoid type of cerebral palsy will have abnormal movements. Such patients need to be treated with drugs that control these abnormal movements. Anticholinergies are the best under these circumstances. The drugs that belong to this group [anti-cholinergic] reduce the activity of acetyl choline.

These acetyl cholines are the chemical messengers. These chemical messengers play an important role in contraction of the muscle in cerebral palsy.rocyclidinehydrochloride, trihexyphenidyl, and benztropine are few examples of anticholinergic drugs.

At times the physicians inject the alcohol in to the muscles directly in order to reduce the spasticity for a brief period of time. The alcohol injected weakens the muscle for weeks together. This gives time required for other treatments like casts or bracing or physiotherapy that is used to lengthen the muscle. In some rare cases, if the contraction was detected early, alcohol injection may help to avoid surgery.

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