Cerebral palsy refers to a group of conditions that are caused by problems in brain development and that affect how movement and motor control happen in children. Problems with walking and talking are often the way people start a conversation about cerebral palsy.
Weight, height and body composition are important indicators for development. The tools used to measure these can be different for children with cerebral palsy.
Cerebral palsy is an injury to the brain, but what we find is that it has a lot of effects on how you use your muscles.
One of the things that we typically forget when we look at kids who have conditions like CP, is that they're first and foremost, children.
Cerebral Palsy affects body movement, muscle control, muscle coordination, muscle tone, reflex, posture and balance. Depending on the part of the brain that is injured depends on how someone’s muscle tone will be effected. For people with spastic CP they have increased muscle tone because of the part of the brain that's injured. If causes very tight muscles which in turn effects the movement of the joints and of the limbs. For others who have dyskinetic CP they lose the ability to have voluntary control over their muscles, and they can have jerky and uncontrolled movement patterns.