Cerebral Palsy & Aging | Managing Cerebral Palsy Symptoms

By Diane Walker, RN, MS, CSA on March 22, 2013 under Neuromuscular Diseases

Information about cerebral palsy usually focuses on children, and for good reason: cerebral palsy is a group of disorders that impair the brain and nervous system and usually surface within a childs first two years. But cerebral palsy isnt just a childrens condition. There are also many adults living with cerebral palsy.

The same medical advances that have increased the lifespan of the general population have done the same thing forcerebral palsy life expectancy.

Most people with cerebral palsy now lead long lives. However, it is only within the last 15 years that people with cerebral palsy have started to live long enough to be concerned about the effects of aging on top of a lifetime of living with disability.

With aging comes special challenges for those with cerebral palsy. Though cerebral palsy is a non-degenerative condition, meaning that it doesnt get worse with aging, a lifetime of fighting physical impairment can mean that people with cerebral palsy often start feeling the effects of age much earlier.

What are the Symptoms of Aging and Cerebral Palsy?

Some common physical problems that people with cerebral palsy experience as they get older include:

What do we know about aging and cerebral palsy?

Scientific study of how aging affects people with cerebral palsy is still in its early days. Doctors know that people with cerebral palsy often experience the above cerebral palsy symptoms as they age, but they do not yet have a good understanding as to why.

There have not yet been the large-scale studies that follow children with cerebral palsy through adulthood necessary to discover how the aging process affects people with mild cerebral palsy. Researchers who study cerebral palsy have recently begun to raise awareness about the need for these kinds of studies.

What is cerebral palsy and where can I learn more?

We would love to hear from readers who have cared for someone with cerebral palsy. What were the challenges you faced? What advice can you share? Please share your cerebral palsy stories in the comments section below.

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Cerebral Palsy & Aging | Managing Cerebral Palsy Symptoms