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Care & Maintenance of Cerebral Palsy: Bathing, Toilet Training, Dressing, Feeding &
Nutrition, Play, Fitness, Seizures, Sleep, Suctioning, Hearing, Vision and Teeth |
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 Vision  A number of vision impairments are more common in people with cerebral palsy than in the general population. Strabismus, a condition characterized by differences in the left and right eye muscles often causing the eyes to be misaligned or cross-eyed. The misalignment causes double vision. In children, however, the brain often adapts by ignoring signals from one eye. Strabismus occurring in the first few months of life is sometimes the clue that first alerts medical professionals to the presence of cerebral palsy. Recent studies have shown that 65-70 percent of children with cerebral palsy also have strabismus. Physicians may recommend surgery to correct strabismus. Untreated, this can lead to very poor vision in one eye and can interfere with certain visual skills, such as judging distance.
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| Children with CP often have refractory problems and are either nearsighted or farsighted, farsighted being the more prevalent. Glasses or contact lenses can improve vision for children with refractive errors. While your child is an infant or still quite young, however, she may be able to manage without corrective lenses. For example, a moderate refractive error which makes far objects blurred may not interfere with a young child’s daily activities. Deciding whether or not to use glasses in these instances is often up to the parents and the ophthalmologist Nystagmus is defined as the rapid oscillating movement of the eye. This interferes with processing visual stimuli because the eye is not able to focus or fixate on its surrounding. Cortical Blindness can be another visual impairment that stems from the original damage to the brain, specifically, the cortex.In cortical blindness, the eye itself is functioning properly, but the signals sent along the optic nerve are not being processed in the cortex so the child does not see. This is a condition that may persist into adulthood but, in many cases, may recover to some extent. Increased stimulation of the eyes by using lights and bright colors can be or enormous benefit in helping the recovery process. Be sure that the room is always brightly lit when the child is doing any activity unless you are deliberately wishing to isolate bright objects such as colored bulbs etc. The following tips may help you to create some enjoyable visual stimulation for your child: • Make a play mat out of shiny paper covered with sticky-backed clear plastic (the kind you can buy in rolls for covering textbooks etc.) You can further add to the effect by scattering glitter and other shiny objects under the plastic. You can add squeaky buttons to bring auditory stimulation and pleasure into the game. • Set up Christmas lights and Christmas decorations on a frame for your child to play under. • Get an ultra violet light and rig it up in a room where you can cut out other lights. Show your child shapes cut out of florescent paper under the ultra violet light. There has been some concern that too much exposure to ultra violet can be harmful (such as causing cataracts) so be very careful not to keep her under the light for very long. • Get hold of some disco lights and let her enjoy frequent light shows. • Make sure you have a bright light shining on her toys when you are playing with her. Hemianopia is a condition marked by impaired vision or blindness in half of the visual field in one eye. If the impairment in the right or left half of the visual field is present in both eyes, the condition is called homonymous hemianopia. Put simply, this means that the child cannot see anything in the entire left or right visual field in both eyes. Because both eyes are affected more or less equally, the location of the problem must be at the optic chiasm (the part of the brain where the optic nerves partially cross) or further back along the visual pathways. In an action such as reading, individuals with normal vision make a rapid series of fixed focuses that are processed in the brain similarly to a motion picture. For children with Cerebral Palsy, sometimes the muscles of their eyes are not able to smoothly coordinate those movements which results in what is called abnormality of saccadic and pursuit movements in their eyes. Home | Cerebral Palsy Causes | Cerebral Palsy Forms | Cerebral Palsy Conditions Home | Bathing & Toilet Training | Dressing | Feeding & Nutrition |
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Nutrition, Play, Fitness, Seizures, Sleep, Suctioning, Hearing, Vision and Teeth |