Living with Cerebral Palsy

If I had all of the answers, I don’t think I would have started this blog in the first place. There is still so much I don’t know about living with cerebral palsy.

Since I have spastic cerebral palsy, I definitely have more to say, because I have lived it for 50 years. But, I recently found a site about Ataxic cerebral palsy. Although I think I have met and seen other kids with it, I never knew it had a different name and definition. I found this on Cerebal Palsy Help:

Ataxic cerebral palsy is one of the rarest forms of CP there is. This type of CP only affects up to about ten percent of the patients and it mainly affects coordination. The word “Ataxic” actually means coordination and Ataxic cerebral palsy is caused when the cerebellum (base of the brain) is damaged. This is the part of the brain that controls balance, coordination and directs the actions of several groups of muscles.

How serious this type of CP becomes will depend on how much brain damage the patient has. When a child begins showing signs of Ataxic cerebral palsy, these are the symptoms they will be living with for the rest of their life.

The symptoms for Ataxic CP include the following:

• Poor balance

• Jerky speech patterns

• Shakiness

• Titubation or wobbling trunk

• Unsteady and wide- based walk

• Nystagmus or abnormal eye movements

• Low muscle tone

Patients with this condition appear limp and lifeless. The simple act of reaching out to touch or hold something can cause a tremor that worsens as they get closer to the object they’re trying to touch. Some refer to this as “intention tremors” because they occur when the person is trying to intentionally do something.

When they try to write, draw or try to do any other specific action the tremors occur. The more specific the action, the worse the tremors become. The patient also has dysmetria, which means they can’t judge distance or scale.

If you have ataxic cerebral palsy, I would like to know more. Please tell us your story or leave a comment. Thank you!