Abstract
Background & Objectives: Cerebral palsy is one of the most common disabling conditions affecting children. It's a nonprogressive encephalopathy. Motor delay is hallmark of CP. It occurs as the result of injury in each phases of brain growth and may be accompanied by speech, auditory, visual abnormality, seizure, learning disorder and mental retardation. The most important risk factors are prematurity and low birth weight. The purpose of this paper is to present etiology, types (classification), associated disorders and motor development of these children in East Azarbaijan.
Materials and Methods: We studied 155 children under 11 years old in two years. Cases were those reffered to Rehabilitation center of Tabriz children hospital with diagnosis of CP. The information collected using checklists.
Results:Nearly one third 34.8% of Patients were under 2 yeares old 62.6% of them were males. Quadriplegic form was recorded as the most frequent type (46.5%), Diplegic was 38.7% and hemiplegic 7.8%, seventy percent (70.3%) of children had spastic forms. Other forms include: 10.3% mixed, 14.2% hypotonic, 5.2% athetoid. Speech disorders and strabism were the most common associated disorders. (47.7%, 41.2% respectively) 18.8% had prominent cognitive problems and 17.5% had seizure.
Low brith weight and prematurity were the most common risk factors (63.3%, 51.3% respectively)
The mean age of head control and sitting were 11.55 ± 8.76 and 21.53 ± 14.26 months respectively. 64% of children in age group 2-6 years walked with assistance.
Conclusion: The most important risk factors for CP are low birth weight and prematurity. These provide a powerful means of development monitoring and follow up for these neonate. Greater than 60% of cerebral palsied children became ambulatory and prominent cognitive problem was seen in 18% of patients, therefore early intervention & rehabilitation can decrease the impact of brain injury on the development of cerebral palsy.