Cerebral Palsy

        Cerebral Palsy is a comprehensive term and has different types.  It refers to many factors causing insult to brain and non-progressive central motor functional problem.  Severe patients always have low intelligence, twitching of limbs, visual disorder, deficits in hearing and language.

      Though cerebral palsy is caused by fixed damage, incorrect treatment will cause a dramatic deterioration in illness.

Etiology of Disease

         Antenatal factors: growth problem, intrauterine infection, lower abdomen radiation during pregnancy, intrauterine asphyxia,

       Intrapartum factors: pre-eclampsia, birth trauma, prematurity asphyxia

       Postnatal factors:  Kernicterus, asphyxia, infection, trauma, bleeding, vascular insult

        Antenatal change is mainly due to maldevelopment of brain, may also be hydrocephalus, brain damage or deformity.  Prenatal changes are mainly scar, sclerosis, partial atrophy and defect in cerebral cortex.  Asphyxia and cerebral hemorrhage can cause damages in cerebral cortex; it is the main cause of cerebral palsy.  Brain damages and damages in cerebral cortex can lead to different level of cerebral atrophy.  Either disseminating encephalopathic change or damage of cerebral cortex due to cerebral edema before or after birth can cause scar, sclerosis or resulting in partial brain atrophy.  Maldevelopment of cortex or brain deformity will cause defect in cerebral cortex, these are the basic pathology.     

Clinical Manifestation

       Symptoms occur in infancy.  There are totally six types of motor problem and the common four types are:

      1.    Spastic diplegia; the most common cerebral palsy.  Motor problem in both lower limbs are more serious than the upper limbs.  Slow motor development includes sitting, standing, walking, severe patient is unable to walk.  Tightening of muscle, walk in scissoring gait, eye ball movement problem, poor language and intelligence ability, with normal electro-encephalogram.  Patients are always premature baby with birth weight under 2000 g.

      2.    Hemiplegic: caused by damage in unilateral.  Upper limbs movement problem is more serious than lower limbs.  Hypertonia, flexed and peronated upper limb, elbow, thumb and finger have flexion deformity, walk in circulated gait.  Some kids have epilepy and intelligence development retardation.

       3.   Spastic tetraplegia with choreoathetosis: both upper limbs have more severe motor functional problems than lower limbs, damage in nervous system.  Hypertonia, athetosis or dyskinesia.  Damage in cerebellum, presented with nystagmus, coordination disorder in body and limbs, together with intelligence development retardation, significant motor development delay, and some patients cannot walk.  Approximately 50% will have muscle dyskinetic with spasm occurred.

        4.   Choreoathetosis or dyskinestic cerebral palsy: various level of choreoathetosis found in face, tongue, lip and body, children below 1 year old will have hypotonia; kids have choreoathetosis movement from time to time after 1 year old, 50% were originated from kevincterus, 50% were originated from neonatal asphyxia.  If it was caused by kevincterus, pyramidal signs were not obvious; if it was caused by neonatal asphyxia, pyramidal signs were observed.  Mental development delay and epilepsy was mostly found in neonatal asphyxia kids.

Treatments for cerebral palsy

       Although common treatment method is applied in curing cerebral palsy, existing medical technique still cannot fully cure the disease.  However, with appropriate treatment, patients can have great improvement in functions and quality of life.

       Cerebral palsy treatment is mainly carried out by comprehensive cooperation of doctors (paediatric neurologist, neurologist, orthopedics), physiotherapy, occupational therapist and orthostherapist, etc.

       To conclude, there are several cerebral palsy treatment methods.  Each patient requires different treatment from time to time and it requires experienced doctors and team members to decide and implement.

    ·        Physiotherapy

·        Occupational therapy

·        Orthosis

·        Seating aids

·        Walking aids

·        Casting

·        Botulinum Toxin

·        Nerve block

·        Selective dorsal rhizotomy

·        Orthopaedic surgery

       Though there are certain ways to choose and use in cerebral palsy treatment, each way shouldn’t be counted as a separate method, it should be applied or chosen as per patient’s requirement.

Tongue acupuncture to patients with cerebral palsy

       Throughout the years of research and clinical observation of cerebral palsy, a newly tongue acupuncture treatment system was formed.  

       The new discovery of sublingual swelling in cerebral palsy is an important clinical statistics and objective standard of tongue acupuncture treatment for cerebral palsy.  Though the relationship between sublingual swelling and cerebral palsy is still unknown, its existence is a fact.  96.64% of 1728 kids suffered from brain disorders (including cerebral palsy, autism, intelligency disability) has sublingual swelling.  Sublingual swelling and the severity level has direct relationship, the more obvious of sublingual swelling, the more severe level of illness is.  With tongue acupuncture treatment and improvement in patient’s condition, sublingual swelling shrinks or becomes normal.  It is the first time in the world discovered the correlation between sublingual swelling and brain diseases.

Scientific research result of tongue acupuncture in cerebral palsy

        PET scan is the most advanced diagnosis equipment in the world.  Cerebral glucose metabolism rate is the main observation in tongue acupuncture to cerebral palsy patient’s research.  95%-99% brain energy comes from glucose, the experience proved that the patients’ cerebral glucose metabolism was increased after treatment and therefore the recovery probability is higher.  Some studies had been carried out jointly with Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital and the research results were:

        A girl with cerebral palsy, 4-year-old, was born by caesarean section at 7 months of gestation, premature twins.  After birth, she developed convulsion, hypoxia and cerebral edema.

 1.   Clinical observation

       Slow development as a whole.  There are problems in motion, eating, chewing and swallowing with intelligence retardation and poor language ability.

2..      PET scan result before treatment

(1)  cerebral glucose metabolism rate reduced, asymmetric of left & right brain with left brain bigger.

(2)  At the motor area of left temporal lobe, there was decrease in glucose metabolism.

Advantages of Tongue Acupuncture

        In view of tongue acupuncture on the research of cerebral palsy, it has its privilege advantage over other treatments.

       1.  Immediate effect: quick improvement in neck, waist, hand and feet.  90% of the patients are able to improve their conditions after 20 sessions.

       2.   Safe and without side effect: the treatment procedure is required less than one minute that patients easily accept.

      3.   Different degree of improvements in scissor gait, tip-toeing, inversion of foot of spastic neurological parlays

       The researches of children with cerebral palsy generally use the international western medicine standard rules (randomized double blind cohort study).  Parts of the research articles have been published in The Journal of Child Neurology (Canada) and The Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (UK), as well as kept in the National Library of Medicine (USA).

                         boy，9-year-old，sublingual shows no abnormal               boy, 1.5-year-old, mild cerebral palsy

                        change　        

                      PET Scan before the tongue acupuncture                    changes of PET Scan after the treatment

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