The world celebrated this year’s Cerebral Palsy Day on October 6, 2017, but experts have said that awareness about the phenomenon is still a huge issue in the society.
They have, therefore, called on all and sundry for medical and familial support to the sufferers to intensify awareness about the phenomenon.
Although cerebral palsy is the most common physical disability in children, it is widely misunderstood. The World Cerebral Palsy Day is an opportunity to raise awareness about it in communities and assist others to look beyond the disability.
The Founder of Cerebral Palsy Africa Initiative, Air Vice Marshal Femi Gbadebo (retd), said although cerebral palsy was a complex, lifelong disability, “which primarily affects movement, people with CP may also have visual, learning, hearing, speech and intellectual impairments, as well as epilepsy.”
“It can be mild, a situation whereby there is a weakness on one of the hands and it can also be severe, where people have little control over movements or speech and may need 24-hour assistance,” he added.
Gbadebo noted that people living with CP could experience a range of responses from others in their communities, saying, “On the one end of the spectrum, they can face deep-seated but misguided sympathy, or even pity. Though intentions are good, they infantilise the person with CP. They can be smothered with (too much) love, and spoken to in a simple, childlike way. Others can subconsciously over-protect a person with CP, and thus prevent them from having essential life experiences.
“On the other end of the spectrum, CP is viewed through deep seated cultural beliefs. It may be seen as validation of superstitions about the mother, or wrath upon a family. Some even believe that CP is contagious or that a child with CP brings shame to a family. Mothers may be abandoned with their children, or a person with CP lives their lives in an institution.”
He added, “In the middle are thousands of fine people, who still find it difficult to make eye contact or know how to communicate with someone who has CP. It is not that they feel any ill will, it is just best, maybe even polite, not to engage them.
“There is nothing to be gained in blaming people for their ignorance about CP. Instead, we will work to put an end to it. We have the ability and the moral obligation to ensure everyone knows the real truth, and acts accordingly.”
An occupational therapist with The Balm of Gilead Medical Centre, Ogun State, Dr. Awele Akugba, said there was no single cause of CP.
Akugba said a sequence of events, either before, during or after birth could lead to an injury in a baby’s developing brain, adding that for most babies born with CP in developed countries, the cause remained unknown.
Only a very few are as a result of complications at birth, she said.
Akugba noted that in the developing world, the number of preventable cases of CP was much higher and could be addressed if mothers and babies had better access to good medical care, and if primary clinicians had access to better information and tools.
“That is a problem that we can begin to solve right now. There is no single test that offers a complete diagnosis of CP. Effective diagnosis may involve a combination of tests such as a CT scan or MRI, which are not widely available and clinical assessment (for which many primary care givers have not been trained). What arises is that CP is often diagnosed too late, meaning that children miss the vital care and motor training during the critical months of brain development after birth and, possibly, the opportunity to reduce the impact of CP,” she said.
