What is the rehabilitation training for children with cerebral palsy?

       When a child shows some symptoms of cerebral palsy, it is important to take the child to the hospital in time, because cerebral palsy (cerebral palsy for short) is one of the important causes of serious disability in pediatrics. In the past, cerebral palsy was considered as an incurable disease and was left to develop, losing the opportunity for early rehabilitation. As a result, some of the children developed from mild illness to serious illness and even required lifelong care, which brought heavy burden and pain to families, individuals and society.  With the rapid development of rehabilitation medicine, there is a new breakthrough in the rehabilitation of pediatric cerebral palsy. Modern medical practice has proved that the rehabilitation of cerebral palsy is based on early and lasting correction of abnormal posture and functional training of limbs. Parents of children with cerebral palsy should master some rehabilitation knowledge, work closely with doctors, combine various trainings with games and entertainment, and run through the child’s daily life, and carefully and patiently operate day after day, month after month, or even year after year without interruption, so as to help the child overcome difficulties and strive to lead a normal child’s life as soon as possible.  Now we summarize the rehabilitation training methods for children with cerebral palsy, and hope that they will be helpful to parents: 1. The head of a child with cerebral palsy is often tilted to one side, so parents should always pay attention to making his or her head located in the middle line, especially when lying down with sandbags or soft objects on both sides of the head. If there is a back or forward tilt, parents behind the child with two hands from the top of the head vertical pressure, conducive to the formation of normal patterns. Some mothers who take their children to sleep at night with milk always prefer to be on one side, which affects the maintenance of the neutral position of the child’s head.  2.Stop salivation Most children with cerebral palsy have salivation, which is caused by the facial muscles and swallowing being in a spastic and uncoordinated state at the same time, incomplete jaw closure and insensitive swallowing reflex. Put the end of the middle finger on both sides of the hyoid bone at the root of the neck under the jaw of the child, hold up the jaw to close the mouth, and then lift up with a little force and draw forward to make the tongue lift up and produce a swallowing movement, after a period of stimulation, it is expected to stop the salivation.  3.Adopt the side position When the sick child lies in bed to play or sleep, he should adopt the side position, which is conducive to the relief of spastic muscle tone, and also conducive to the symmetry of the limbs, easy to put both hands on the chest; place toys and hang some colorful and bright balloons and bells in front of him, which is easy to grasp the toys, and is conducive to the development of upper limb function, and also stimulated by the color and sound.  4. Correct the thumb inversion The thumb inversion in children with cerebral palsy is almost 100%, that is, the thumb is attached to the palm, and the four fingers are rolled and held outside the thumb in the way of clenching the fist, which is called primitive clenching. This prevents the development of thumb function and the ability to support, extend the palm, open the hand, and grasp objects. Thumb function accounts for 60% of the whole fingers, so parents should often give the child some spherical or round-shaped toys to grasp or often pull the thumb outward, or make a thumb glove to make the thumb continuously abducted in order to be corrected.  The child with cerebral palsy lacks voluntary movement and parents often hold him in their arms even though he is past the age of infancy. If the child’s hands are not wrapped around the adult’s neck and the trunk control is poor, use one hand to hold the back of the child’s shoulders and the other hand to hold the hips, and place the legs on both sides of the waist and iliac region. When the child is able to cradle the neck and trunk with his hands with some control, the parents use one hand to hold the child’s buttocks in a sitting position and let his legs separate and place them in front of and behind the iliac side. This is conducive to the functional development of the upper limbs, so that the lower limbs spastic adductor muscle stretching and stretching, play a good role.  6, appropriate sitting posture Poor sitting posture is very likely to cause spinal deformity. In order to keep the skeletal joints flexed 90 degrees and the back fully extended when sitting on a flat surface, parents can kneel behind the child, hold his waist with his abdomen, pass both upper limbs under his armpits to prevent the scapula from being inwardly retracted, while using both hands to separate the child’s legs and press the knee joints to straighten the lower limbs. When the child is sitting, the iliac joint is hyperflexed, the lower limbs are stretched apart, the head is depressed, the upper limbs are lifted up, the body weight is backward, and it is easy to fall backwards. Parents can put the child’s legs together and flex them, then hold the child’s shoulder joints with both hands and rotate them inward, so that the child can put his hands in front of his chest for support or grasp toys.  7. Hand function training In children with cerebral palsy, the lower limbs are usually more important than the upper limbs, and the upper limbs retain certain functions. These trainings are beneficial to the functional development of the hand and also promote intellectual development. Further fine motor training is eye – hand coordination. That is, the fingers according to the eye’s estimation, the brain’s domination and regulation, purposely do some of the more accurate action, such as building blocks, let the child in the vertical direction of the stack of small squares; pick up beans, the child will be on the table of soybeans or beans with the thumb grain by grain, and one by one into a small bottle; do insert wood games, that is, wooden sticks into the base with holes. You can also guide them to do knotting, tying shoelaces and buttoning, etc. to lay the foundation for future self-care.  Some parents think that their children have disabilities and are afraid of being aggrieved, so they take care of them in life and do everything they can, and do nothing, so they are overly dependent on them. Because there is no opportunity to exercise from an early age, the child will lose residual limb function, which is a great pity. Therefore, the child must be trained from childhood a variety of life skills, he can do things, try to let them exercise, parents can give enthusiastic guidance, preferably hand-holding repeated coaching. In line with the principle of easy first, then difficult, step by step, find a little progress, give recognition and praise, give full play to the child’s subjective initiative and potential ability. Only after training, with the ability to feed, dress and undress themselves, and take care of their own urine and stool, and then after training for employment, to be able to engage in simple labor and function, can a sick child become a useful person to society. As long as the rehabilitation treatment is carried out reasonably, the child will recover better. For this reason, in addition to the rehabilitation treatment in the hospital, parents should also carry out some simple rehabilitation training at home, so that the child’s function can be recovered as soon as possible.