Cerebral Palsy Treatment

Cerebral palsy is a disorder of movement and posture caused by injury to the developing brain, appearing in infancy or early childhood. The injury itself does not progress — what changes as the child grows is how that fixed injury expresses itself in muscles, joints and bones, which is why treatment is a long programme rather than an operation.

Where it comes from

Before birth: reduced blood or oxygen supply to the baby, maternal infections including cytomegalovirus, rubella, chickenpox and toxoplasmosis, injury to the baby's head, and congenital disorders. During birth: oxygen deprivation, meningitis, head trauma during an assisted delivery, a severe drop in blood sugar, or a stroke. After birth: head injury, and brain infections such as encephalitis and meningitis. The strongest risk factors are prematurity before 32 weeks and low birth weight, followed by twin or multiple pregnancy, maternal age over 35, abnormal blood pressure in pregnancy, and prenatal exposure to drugs, alcohol or heavy metals.

The types, and why the label matters

Cerebral palsy is described twice over — by which parts of the body are affected and by how the muscles behave. By distribution: quadriplegia (all four limbs, sometimes trunk and face), hemiplegia (one side), diplegia (both legs or both arms) and monoplegia (one limb). By type: spastic, dyskinetic, hypotonic, ataxic and mixed. Both labels together decide which therapies and which operations are even relevant, so it is worth knowing exactly which ones apply to your child.

What is done, and in what order

Therapy is the foundation and continues throughout: physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, plus recreational, aquatic and art-based work and psychological support. Assistive equipment — glasses, hearing aids, braces, walking aids, a wheelchair — is prescribed to enable, not to concede. Muscle tone is managed medically with relaxants such as baclofen, tizanidine, diazepam and dantrolene, with botulinum toxin type A injected into specific overactive muscles, and where tone is severe and widespread, with an implanted pump delivering baclofen directly into the spinal fluid. Anticonvulsants are added where there are seizures. Surgery is selective: orthopaedic operations to release tight muscles and correct bony deformity, and selective dorsal rhizotomy, which divides specific sensory nerve roots at the base of the spine to reduce persistent spasticity. Diagnosis and planning rest on cranial ultrasound in infancy and on MRI.

About stem cell therapy — read this before you pay for it

You will find stem cell therapy for cerebral palsy advertised widely, including on the pages we researched to write this one. We will not present it as established treatment. It remains investigational, its trials are early, and the claim made most often for it — that it works faster and better than conventional care and has no negative effects — is not true of any medical intervention, and the description of conventional cerebral palsy care as steroid-based is simply wrong. If a provider tells you otherwise, ask which published trial they are relying on and what the control group received. We will arrange a consultation with a paediatric neurologist who will give you a straight answer; we will not sell you the treatment.