What is the Cause of CP?
Although it was once believed that birth complications were the most frequent cause of cerebral palsy, we now know that such complications account for just a fraction of the cases. A study by the Federal Government’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in the 1980s confirmed that birth complications accounted for probably less than 10 percent of the total cases of CP. This drastically altered medical theories about cerebral palsy. The NINDS study also confirmed that in most cases, no direct cause for CP could be found. Types of Cerebral Palsy There are four broad categories of cerebral palsy: spastic, athetoid, ataxic, and mixed forms that are defined by the type of movement disturbance disorder in each case. Spastic cerebral palsy affects 70 to 80 percent of patients. Patients who suffer from spastic cerebral palsy have muscles that are stiffly and permanently contracted. Doctors often describe the type of spastic cerebral palsy a patient has based on which
