Page 81 - SEN113 SEN Magazine July-August 2021-V3

Cerebral palsy Setting the tone Chris Smith explains muscle tone. 81 What is Cerebral Palsy? There are many definitions for cerebral palsy. One of the most useful definitions for me is that it’s a physical injury to the developing brain that occurs before, during or shortly after birth. Cerebral palsy is not a genetic condition, it is acquired through an injury to the brain. There are many ways such an injury can occur, such as a bleed in the brain, a car accident or a lack of oxygen during birth. In a child with cerebral palsy the brain injury doesn’t increase with time. However, it often impacts on further development so that the effect of the injury is not unchanging, it ripples throughout the child’s further development. What is muscle tone? Most caregivers of children with cerebral palsy are familiar with the language around muscle tone, having had several years of reports from paediatricians, orthopaedic surgeons, physiotherapists and other professional reports describing their child’s condition. However, when I speak with families, they are often familiar with the terms but not the actual meaning. In order to be specific, professional medical language can be a lot of jargon and not easy to understand for many caregivers. Many can quote terms such as spasticity, dystonia or hypertonicity but many don’t understand how this presents and specifically impacts onto their child’s movement disorder. Children with cerebral palsy don’t drop into neat categories, most have a range of challenges associated with their brain injury which is not just difficulty with movement. Many children will have issues around swallowing or speech, understanding and communicating their needs. This is often specific to the “Children with cerebral palsy don’t drop into neat categories” nature, size and location of the brain injury. These physical, sensory, emotional and cognitive difficulties often impact a child’s ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) and subsequently how they participate in society as a whole. When it comes to describing the way children with cerebral palsy move, professionals will often refer to some of these characteristics. Such as hypertonicity (high muscle tone), hypotonia (low muscle tone), spasticity (difficulty moving a joint quickly) or dystonia (movement that happens on its own). These are often associated with injury to specific parts of the brain relating to the injury. It might be useful to clarify these terms by first starting to talk about typical muscle tone. So, what is ‘typical muscle tone’? This term has been widely used within the fitness industry and in a way, has made it difficult for parents to relate it to their child. Firstly, muscle tone has nothing to do with how strong senmagazine.co.uk SEN113