Cerebral Palsy, India’s hidden disorder

Often there are misconceptions related with health disorders or epidemics and once such case is with Cerebral Palsy (CP).

In an attempt to address the nuances, Bollywood recently presented the story of “Laila” played by actress Kalki Koechin in ‘Margarita, with a Straw‘.
The story which revolves around the main character who was suffering from cerebral palsy subtly showcases the problems faced by her and focuses on how she overcomes them and tries to lead a normal life.

It may be unknown to most that CP affects three out of 1000 children in India alone, and health experts have argued that they have average intelligence and should be included given mainstream education.

So what exactly is Cerebral Palsy?
Caused due to the occurrence of damage in the parts of the brain that control movement, balance and posture, cerebral palsy is a permanent movement disorder. It appears in early childhood and the signs and symptoms vary from person to person.

Individuals suffering from this disorder have different problems, one might suffer from total paralysis and others might have slight movement tremors and require little assistance. The disorder does not aggravate but is incurable, hence becomes permanent. Cerebral Palsy is the most common movement disorder in children and about 2.1 per 1000 babies suffer from it all over the world.

Infants or babies suffering from cerebral palsy have difficulty in rolling over, crawling, walking or sitting. Trouble in thinking or reasoning occurs only in one third of people suffering from CP.

The problem mostly develops during pregnancy but in some cases during childbirth or shortly after that. A child is more prone to this impairment if they are a premature birth, suffer from trauma during birth or severe illness shortly after birth.  Infections during pregnancy can also play a role and it is believed that less then 1% of the cases are due to an inherited genetic cause.

Physical and Speech therapy, medications and surgery have helped many leading them to have nearly normal adult life.