Who is called "spastic"?
People with scarred, non-progressive brain lesions.
What are the consequences?
These individuals face permanent disability that raises medical, human, educational, and social challenges.
What causes these lesions?
The causes are numerous and complex. Let me outline the main categories.
- Most cases stem from birth-related accidents. Key factors include prematurity, anoxia (oxygen deprivation), and birth or obstetric trauma. Many of these children have multiple disabilities and intellectual deficiency.
- Prenatal injuries—those acquired during pregnancy—are equally common and often of unknown origin. Classic causes include viral infections (rubella, for instance), parasitic infections (toxoplasmosis), malnutrition, radiation exposure, and poisoning or drug use (certain medications, alcohol, tobacco, drugs). These result in embryopathies and fetopathies.
- Childhood-acquired injuries deserve mention too. Meningitis, severe diarrheal dehydration, certain anesthetic accidents, accidental poisoning, encephalitis, tumors, and head trauma can all leave lasting brain damage of varying severity.
What are the main types of disability?
We observe people with the following impairments:
- Hemiplegia—paralysis on one side of the body, causing a distinctive walking pattern. The affected arm serves mainly as a point of support. This creates a relatively significant social handicap.
- Spastic diplegia (Little's disease), affecting both legs rigidly. Learning to walk can take considerable time.
- Tetraplegia, with rigid limbs affecting all four extremities. If the movements are abnormal and uncoordinated—dystonic athetosis—these are usually severe cases requiring a wheelchair.
- Children with an unsteady, zigzag gait have congenital cerebellar ataxia (malformation or improper development of the cerebellum).
What treatments exist?
No therapy can cure these children, but treatment can improve their situation. Only rehabilitation allows functional adaptation, which varies from child to child.
What education should they receive?
This is the most important part. Whenever possible, these children must attend school like all others. Those who cannot must receive appropriate education in facilities tailored to each case.
What is their future?
It differs for every child. Much depends on how society welcomes them. This is an enormous challenge that concerns all of us and demands effort from everyone: doctors, educators, therapists, and above all parents and families.
What can we do for a better future?
Help those currently disabled, but more importantly, work to prevent disability in children yet to come. This struggle began twenty years ago, but much remains to be done in research.
- Prof. Michael Arthuis, 1990
from Ombres et Lumière, no. 88