MIXED CEREBRAL PALSY

The disorder is divided into three main distinct categories together with a fourth category known as mixed cerebral palsy which is a combination of the other three distinct forms :-

• Spastic CP affects the majority of patients and is characterised by tight, stiff muscles that cause jerky movements resulting in difficulty moving position and holding or releasing objects properly.
• Athetoid CP affects fewer patients and causes involuntary movements particularly in the arms, midsection and face as a result of mixed muscle tone. This form of CP settles at night indicating that there is an emotional constituent.
• Ataxic CP affects less than 10% of patients and is responsible for a lack of co-ordination, poor depth perception and inadequate sense of balance causing difficulties in both movement and posture.
• Mixed Cerebral Palsy is characterized by being a combination of symptoms present in the three other types outlined above and is caused by damage to the pyramidal and the extra-pyramidal parts of the brain.

  Only a small proportion of patients suffer from this relatively rare type of CP. They usually exhibit the stiff muscle characteristic of spastic CP and the involuntary movements of athetoid CP with rare involvement of ataxic CP symptoms.

  Initially a child with mixed cerebral palsy will at first exhibit signs of spasticity and involuntary movement will thereafter follow when the child is between nine months and three years old and at this stage an accurate diagnosis may be made. In a few cases there is a combination of athetoid and ataxic but more often it is found to be a combination of spastic and athetoid.

Mixed cerebral palsy can range from mild to severe however it will almost always have a serious effect on a patient’s everyday life. Among the many problems experienced is dysfunctional movement, inadequate ability to balance and reduced motor function. Many patients have difficulty standing up and sitting down. More serious cases involve mental retardation, incontinence, poor hearing and eyesight, impaired pain perception, growth difficulties and episodes of seizures.

It is a sad fact that a small percentage of those who suffer from this debilitating condition do so as a direct result of human error in the form of medical negligence which inevitably occurred just before, during or immediately after childbirth. If you suspect that medical negligence played a part in your childs disability you might like to consider taking legal advice and thereafter having a potential claim examined in detail using legal Aid which is available in these cases. The applicant for Legal Aid is always the child and it is the child’s income and assets that are assessed and not the parents. This means that almost all children will qualify for legal aid with absolutely no financial contribution being necessary from the parents.

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