Growing up with Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy in infants is always devastating. The real challenges, however, begin when the child starts to grow. In many cases, an individual who suffers from cerebral palsy also has significant learning disabilities. There are some individuals who are fully developed in terms of their intellectual abilities, but they may suffer with hearing problems and speech problems that make it more difficult for them in school. There are many other ways that this condition affects young people who live with it.

In the worst cases, people who suffer from CP need complete and total care 24 hours a day. Many cases are not quite so severe, but the individual who suffers with the condition is still quite impaired. Walking, for example, is very challenging for people with cerebral palsy. There are also mixed forms of cerebral palsy that make the effects of the disorder even more pronounced. Some of the common forms of cerebral palsy include ataxic cerebral palsy and dyskinetic cerebral palsy. While each type has its own unique features, they all share the problems with muscle tone, walking and coordination in general among them.

When someone with CP reaches adulthood, they sometimes need more care than they did as children. While the brain injury neither gets worse nor heals, the symptoms of the brain injury can become worse. Because care will still be needed when these children reach adulthood, parents have to anticipate what the child is going to do when their parents are no longer around. This is obviously a great source of stress and, when it's clear that medical negligence is what led to the child suffering with CP in the first place, parents sometimes decide to file a lawsuit.

Negligence doesn't have to just be on the part of the doctor. There are cases where the health care facility where the child is born is found to have been negligent and there are cases where nurses are found to have been negligent. The point is that the medical staff, or the institution, didn't come through on their promise to take care of their patients as they should have. This means that there is sometimes an opportunity to file a lawsuit to recover damages for expenses, pain and suffering. You'll have to talk to an attorney to determine whether or not you'll be able to file a lawsuit for your particular case.