The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Documenting data on cerebral palsy essential’

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Sunday, Dec 02, 2007
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‘Documenting data on cerebral palsy essential’

Staff Reporter

Screening at infancy will help in effective treatment: expert

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Cause and effect: A.K. Prohit, General Secretary, IACP; M.S. Mahadeviah, President, IACP; and P. Balaram, Director, IISc. Bangalore, at the conference in Bangalore on Saturday.

Bangalore: For every 1,000 births in the country, there could be anywhere between three to five cases of children born with central motor dysfunction (of which cerebral palsy forms the largest group), according to M.C. Mathew, consultant developmental neurologist, Christian Medical College, Vellore.

Speaking on the ‘Epidemiology of Cerebral Palsy’ at the second national conference of the Indian Academy of Cerebral Palsy here on Saturday, Dr. Mathew said that this figure was an estimate gathered from data from secondary and tertiary care centres. “But we need much more data to accurately establish the occurrence of birth-related central motor dysfunction,” he added.

Need for awareness

“We need to educate all those who screen infants about cerebral palsy. For instance, during immunisation, at least five parameters can be measured: the head size, vision and hearing, language development, the movement of hands and legs and social behaviour,” he said. This would help document data on the occurrence of cerebral palsy, and also help to diagnose and begin therapy early, he said. “What happens normally is that children are brought in when they are already three or four years old, when manifestations of the disability are already apparent. Checks must be done from six months onwards.”

M.S. Mahadeviah, President, Indian Academy of Celebral Palsy said, “There is tremendous lack of knowledge on developmental disabilities, which account for not less that 15 per cent of all births. There are just not enough professionals to deal with the disability.”

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