Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a medical condition that affects control of the muscles. If someone has cerebral palsy it means that because of an injury to their brain, they are unable to use some of the muscles in their body in the normal way. Children who have cerebral palsy may not be able to walk, talk, eat or play like other kids. CP is not a disease or illness. It isn't contagious and it doesn't get worse, but it is not something you "grow out of." Children who have CP will have it all their lives.

Cerebral palsy is caused by an injury to the brain before, during, or shortly after birth. Sometimes injuries to a baby's brain happen while the baby is still in the mother's womb. The injury might be caused by an infection or by an accident in which the mother is hurt. If the mother has a medical problem such as high blood pressure or diabetes, this can also cause problems in the baby. There may be problems during birth such as the baby not getting enough oxygen, or a difficult delivery in which the baby's brain is injured. Problems after birth may happen when a baby is born too soon (premature delivery) and his body is not ready to live outside his mother's womb. The most important thing to remember is that you do not "catch" CP from another person, and you do not develop CP later in life. It is caused by an injury to the brain near the time of birth.

Children with CP have damage to the area of their brain that controls muscle tone. Depending on where their brain injury is and how big it is, their muscle tone may be too tight, too loose, or a combination. Muscle tone is what lets us keep our bodies in a certain position, like sitting with our heads up to look at the teacher in class. Changes in muscle tone let us move. Children with CP are not able to change their muscle tone in a smooth and even way, so their movements may be jerky or wobbly.

In addition to problems controlling their muscle movement, children with CP may have some other problems too. Most of these are caused by the same brain injury that caused CP.

Talking and Eating

Just as CP can affect the way a person moves their arms and legs, it can also affect the way they move their mouth, face and head. This can make it hard for the person to talk clearly and to bite, chew and swallow food. Their speech is hard to understand, they are unable to make their lips, jaw and tongue move quickly.

Learning Problems

About one-fourth to one-half of children with CP also have some type of learning problem. It may be a learning disability or a more severe learning problem like mental retardation in which they learn everything at a slower rate. People with mild mental retardation may learn to read and write but people with more severe mental retardation probably will not. This does not mean that children with severe mental retardation cannot learn, just that they learn at a slower pace than most other kids and will need some extra help in school.

Seizures

About half of all children with CP have seizures. This is due to some abnormal activity in their brains that interrupts what they are doing. Often, the abnormal brain activity happens in the same place as the brain injury which caused the CP. The brain is constantly sending messages out to the body - to breathe, to move, to keep your heart pumping. A seizure is a series of abnormal messages being sent out very close together. This may cause someone to stop moving during a seizure or to loose control of his or her body and fall down. Some people show shaking movements all over when they are having a seizure. Seizures usually last a few seconds to a few minutes, and in most case are not dangerous. Medications are required for the management of seizures.

Role of homoeopathy: -

Homoeopathy is 200 years old system of medicine discovered by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann a German Physician and is based on Natural Holistic Form of medicine based on laws nature. Homeopathy takes consideration the person as a whole and the prescription is based on INDIVIDUAL FEATURES. So each child though having same diagnosis of CP will need INDIVIDUAL Homeopathic Medicine. And that is how it helps in holistic way – improvement is seen at both the levels physical as well as mental level.

Homoeopathy is a holistic science. Homoeopathic medicines are safe without any adverse side effects and are soothing to the child. Homoeopathy works in perfect synergy with other essential therapies like physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, yoga. Homoeopathy is the central therapeutic modality.

Homoeopathic medicine correct the defective ' motor patterns' and so there is improved seen in coordination as well as perception. Child shows improvement in involuntary jerky movements. Improvement is also seen in balancing and equilibrium Correction in altered state of sensitivity. Various fears like height, loud noise etc are remarkably reduced. Homoeopathic medicines are essentially immunomodulators. Thus child who is prone to recurrent infection shows improvement in that ' tendency'. It will be noted that the frequency, intensity, duration of his infections like respiratory infections, gastric infections etc will start reducing and child shows build up in the general resistance power. Correct homoeopathic medicines also promote growth processes thereby speeding up the developmental milestones. Management of underlying neurological and metabolic disturbance like seizures. Child starts appearing 'calmer' and 'at ease'. He / she starts showing improvement in behavioural disturbances like restlessness, impulsiveness, tantrums etc. these developments help the child to be ' more receptive' to the therapies. As highlighted earlier, homoeopathic science is not a substitute for other therapies but it is complementary. That is the prime reason why at our centre we work as a team. Homoeopathic medicines are very soothing for the child and they 'prepare' the child receives other therapeutic inputs. Our therapists have time and again commented that they have to spend less time controlling the children who are benefited from homoeopathic treatment.