But then I checked out a book on cerebral palsy, Children With Cerebral Palsy, A Parent's Guide by Elaine Geralis and found that the term encompasses so many possible difficulties from mild to severe. I felt a little bit better.
Cerebral palsy is, simply put, brain damage. The effects can be as minor as difficulty with small muscle activities - for example, holding a pencil or tying shoes. Or the damage can result in severe disability, the type most of us probably visualize when we think of cerebral palsy, such as spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
Briefly, there are five major classifications, or types, of cerebral palsy that take into account the part of the body affected, quadriplegia, triplegia, diplegia (paraplegia), hemiplegia (hemiparesis), or monoplegia. The second part of the classification is based on the function of the muscles and the classifications are: spastic, athetoid, ataxic, or mixed.
Here are two overview sites about cerebral palsy that are loaded with information.
CPAction’s website http://www.cpaction.org.uk/moreoncp.htm has by far the best overview article that I have found. This site discusses the forms of cerebral palsy in great, but easy to read, detail. It also gives information about other medical disorders associated with cerebral palsy, including mental impairment, epilepsy, growth problems, impaired vision or hearing and abnormal sensation and perception.
This site tells how cerebral palsy is diagnosed, including a description of tests that may be done. The article goes into great depth on the topic of therapy, including drug therapy and surgery. It includes a long section on current research and a glossary.
Causes of cerebral palsy are included in this article, as are risk factors for having a child with cerebral palsy (some of the risk factors listed here are preventable, some are not). If you are a parent who doesn't have an answer as to why your child has HIE, this list could be a starting point for finding an answer.
The second is from National Academy for Child Development, at http://www.nacd.org/articles/cp/html . You may or may not agree with Glenn Doman's theories on treatment, but this site gives complete definitions for all classifications of cerebral palsy. This site also discusses rigidity, tremors, ataxia, atonia, and flaccidity, causes of brain injury, and treatments.
Some other good sites to visit are:
Jody Swarbrick’s great Cerebral Palsy site at about.com:
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