PubMed1975
The main aim of the present Conference has been to debate that early diagnosis and treatment of cerebral palsy. The Conference was attended by specialists taking care of the child with cerebral palsy (C.P.): child neurologists, surgeons--orthopedists, psychologists, rehabilitants, pediatricians. In connection with the fact that the Conference was devoted to the early diagnosis and therapy of C.P., problems concerning the lower age groups of children were debated. The Conference discussed the definitions of "cerebral palsy" used in the literature, the clinical forms, the auxiliary diagnostic methods and their significance in the diagnosing of this pathological syndrome. Early clinical symptoms, enabling to establish the diagnosis of cerebral palsy were particularly extensively debated. In the latter problem particular attention was paid to the diagnostic value of kinetic automatisms of the group of tonic posture reflexes and dysfunctions of the kinetic pattern in children. It was underlined in the debate the C.P. was no separate clinical disease, but a pathological syndrome arisen as a result of the negative influence of different factors and yielding very diverse clinical and neurolopathologic symptoms, according to the kind of noxious factors and the period and degree of maturity of the nervous system in which they acted. The participants in the debate also sressed that, as the child develops and is observed for a longer period it is fairly often necessary to check this diagnosis, as C.P. may prove, as the time passes, to be a degenerative syndrome, a pressure syndrome etc. The psychologists participating in the Conference discussed the psychological problems of the child with C.P. and also the early diagnosis of the pathological syndrome debated. The diversity of the symptoms of the C.N.S. in children suffering from C.P. was underscored, as--apart from dysfunctions within the kinetic area, there can be present sight, hearing and speech dysfunctions, those of sensory perceptions and mental development. These children require multispecialist care, as everyone of dysfunctions mentioned may present a complicated diagnostic problem. Plenty of place was devoted to the discussion of problems connected with epilepsy in children with C.P. Also extensively debated were the general principles of the medical procedure in children with C.P. As a result of the discussion it was decided that children with severer forms of C.P. and those from poor social conditions should be subjected to long-lasting sanatorium rehabilitation. Keeping the child in its family environment should, however, be the generally adopted principle of the rehabilitation of a little child. The parents of the child should be trained in the proper rearing of the child under household conditions, a manner to secure all the needs resulting from the then stage of its development. In connection with this problem the project of the programme of sensoric-and-kinetic rehabilitation was debated, as presented by psychologists and rehabilitants (kinesitherapeuts).