Enhancing early rehabilitation intervention for children at risk for cerebral palsy

  Currently in China, asphyxia, prematurity, obstructed labor, and jaundice are the four major causative factors of pediatric cerebral palsy, so it is important to pay attention to early intervention for this group of children to reduce its incidence as much as possible.  Early intervention measures for high-risk children: 1. Inhibit abnormal posture and movement patterns, and conduct easing training for normal movement development.  2. Expanding the range of joint movement, preventing joint spasticity and bone deformation, and improving mobility. These are especially important for children with spastic cerebral palsy.  3.Throughout the rehabilitation training in games, the active movement of children with cerebral palsy is guided by the way of games, which is used to achieve the training requirements, such as head lifting, turning over, crawling, etc.  4. Life movement training is the most basic survival training for children with cerebral palsy, so that children with cerebral palsy can gradually achieve self-care in feeding, cleaning, dressing and undressing, urinating and defecating, and language interaction.  5. According to the specific situation of the child, orthopedic devices can be used to help improve the function and prevent the occurrence of deformities, and surgical procedures can be performed to correct spastic deformities, reduce spasticity and fix joints.  Pay attention to abnormal manifestations to achieve early detection The treatment of pediatric cerebral palsy focuses on early detection, early intervention and early treatment. If some symptoms of children at risk are neglected and the best correction period is missed, it will have irreversible effects on the child’s life, affecting the child’s normal development in mild cases and leading to lifelong disability in severe cases.”  Generally speaking, the following symptoms are mostly present in the early stage: 1. feeding difficulties, uncoordinated sucking and swallowing movements  2.Irritability, easily startled, easily irritated.  3. Poor response to the surrounding environment.  4. Gaze and strabismus.  5.Head instability, little movement of limbs, softness of torso and limbs.  6.Open mouth and tongue, body stiffness, jerking, uncoordinated and asymmetrical movements.  7. Delayed motor development, at least 3 months behind compared to normal children.  Once the child shows these manifestations, parents must hurry to take it to the regular hospital for consultation. If the child can be treated within 6 months after birth, the effect is the best, and some children’s intelligence can even reach the level of normal children. This is because the baby’s brain tissue develops fastest before 6 months of age, the brain is plastic and easy to recover, and it is easier to correct abnormal posture after early brain injury, which is not yet fixed. It is important to remind parents (especially parents of children at high risk of cerebral palsy) that many of the damages caused by high-risk factors to the growth and development of infants are not exposed immediately and often only become apparent after a period of time, so there is a great possibility of being overlooked. Early educational training and preventive intervention can prevent the occurrence of cerebral palsy and other problems or reduce the symptoms.