The effect of early treatment for children with cerebral palsy in cooperation with city health welfare offices
No To Hattatsu, 27 (6):
480--486 (November 1995)Abstract
The Yokohama Rehabilitation Center has been treating children with cerebral palsy mainly by Vojta's method. We divided 90 cases with cerebral-palsied patients into two groups according to the month when the treatment started. The first group consisted of 27 cases started treatment before six months old; the second group consisted of 63 cases, after seven months old. Of these, all eleven children with hemiparetic type learned walking. Forty-one children with tetraparesis, spastic or mixed type could not learn walking. In the other types of cerebral palsy, 84.6\% of the first group, and 40.0\% of the second group could walk eventually. Though all cases in the first group had perinatal disturbances, 11 cases (17.5\%) in the second group had none. The results of the treatment for the children with cerebral palsy of the first and second groups show that early treatment is effective and necessary. Developmental screening for four-month-old is performed at the city health welfare offices. This has a great role in finding risky babies of cerebral palsy. Risky babies checked at four months of age could have therapy at six months of age at the latest. So it is important to diagnose them as early as possible in cooperation with the city health welfare offices.