Characteristics and Treatment for Ataxic Cerebral Palsy

Characteristics and Treatment for Ataxic Cerebral Palsy

Ataxic cerebral palsy is a kind of main types cerebral palsy, which is caused by damage to the cerebellum. The cerebellum is the balance center of the brain that commands the posture of body. Comparing with spastic cerebral palsy, ataxic cerebral palsy has more complex symptoms so that the treatment result is not as good as spastic CP. Stem cell treatment is the latest treatment for cerebral palsy. It is proved more effective to recover the symptoms of ataxic cerebral palsy than other therapies such as physical therapy, rehabilitation training, surgery and medications.
Children with ataxic cerebral palsy will usually have a wide-based gait walking with unsteady and shaky posture. Because of their poor sense of balance they tend to walk with their feet unusually far apart. This is due to low muscle tone where the body is constantly trying to counter-balance itself.
The most significant characteristic of ataxic cerebral palsy is tremor so that children with ataxic cerebral palsy have poor fine motor activities such as writing, holding eating utensil, buttoning clothes etc. When patients attempt voluntary and precise movements, the condition of tremor will be aggravated, which is known as intention tremor. For example, when reaching for an object, such as a book, the hand and arm will begin to shake. As the hand gets closer to the object the trembling gets more severe, increasing the completion time necessary for the task.

I sincerely hope more and more children can live by themselves without family member’s 24hs care. Stem cell treatment is not the best treatment in the future but now it is. This is a chance for our children to live by their own.