What is Cerebral Palsy and more specifically Spastic Hemiplegia?
According to Human Motor Development by Payne and Isaacs, Cerebral Palsy (CP) is defined as, “a group of permanent disabling disorders resulting from damage to the motor-control areas of the brain.” The condition itself is non progressive and may emerge at any point either pre-, peri-, or post-natally. The result of this damage to the brain is impairment of control over voluntary movement; there is no actually damage to the muscles themselves.
There are several different types of Cerebral Palsy depending on what part of the brain that is affected. We will focus on a case in which a ten year old child has Spastic Hemiplegia. Spastic Hemiplegia is characterized as being in a constant state of muscle contraction of one side of the body.
Spastic Hemiplegia 