Natural remedies for child with Cerebral Palsy?

[1love4ever]

I have a beautiful little 4 year old cousin who has spastic cerebral palsy.  His parents have been to every medical professional who claims to know anything about the condition, but nothing has helped him.  He can not walk, talk, or do much of anything.  They are desperate.  Anyone have anything that has helped, or that you know has helped someone else, specifically more natural treatment?

Thanks!

[VisionaryMom]

My cousin's little girl has CP. She was diagnosed at 7 months, which I've heard helped immensely (the early diagnosis). They went to both occupational and physical therapy 3X a week for a year or so. Cousin & my grandparents (Cousin lives with them, and they're retired) worked with J multiple times everyday on strengthening her muscles.. She turned 2 in January, and she can walk across a room by herself. She got glasses in January, which helped with her coordination. Her eyesight was pretty bad, and now in the mornings, she gets so ecstatic when you're putting on her glasses! She also has a walker that has helped her strengthen her leg muscles. They're doing speech therapy now as she does speak, but it's really hard to understand her.

They've had to give her some medications for various things, but she doesn't take anything permanently. Most everything she's done has been natural ways of learning to use her muscles better and improve her motor skills. I don't know where J falls on the spectrum of severity, though I'd suspect she's moderate. I have a friend with very mild CP, and you can't really tell. She just has trouble holding some things and can't walk for a long time. I've also seen severe cases where children never learned to walk or talk. J is somewhere in the middle.

I hope they are able to help him! It's such a devastating illness, but our family really has come together to help out with expenses, traveling to the doctor, etc.

[chaoticzenmom]

I've moved this thread to Special Needs Parenting where it is a better fit.  Thanks

Lisa

[BetsyNY]

Show them this:

www.anatbanielmethod.com 

[oaktreemama]

What he can do eventually depends so much on the extent of his brain injury. CP is simply an umbrella term that describes a specific set of symptoms that effect the neuro-muscular system because of some type of brain injury.

I am suspicious when asked about "natural remedies" because of this fact. Our brains are incredibly plastic for sure-and our brains can surely compensate for injuries. But, there is no cure.

PT and OT and any kind of movement type therapies can certainly help. They may want to consider water therapy if they can afford it. I guess it depends on what you mean by natural remedies. If you mean homeopathy or herbs or some such-there is no natural remedy that can overcome the brain damage the baby or child suffered that led to the CP diagnosis.

It sounds like your cousin has a pretty severe case and I can understand the desire to try anything.

You can only hope to teach other areas of the brain to compensate.

[1love4ever]

BetsyNY, have you seen this process done on anyone, or know of anyone who has benefited from it or tried it?  Thank you for the link, it makes sense.

[oaktreemama]

Feldenkrais works well across a wide range of physical issues. It is not new and I have seen people benefit from it and have done many of the exercises myself to help with my DDD and stenosis.

[BetsyNY]

Yes, my son has done very well with Feldenkrais--he should have CP today, but he doesn't. It could help your cousin, and it certainly wouldn't hurt. 

[askew]

I have a brain injured child, no CP so far. My dd had a stroke at birth. 

We have seen Anat Baniel and her assistants since dd was 21 days old. We stopped seeing Anat when DD was 1 and moved to another Feldenkrais practitioner who frankly charges a lot less, but does the same therapy. We have seen more benefit from this therapy than most. 

http://www.anatbanielmethod.com/cerebral-palsy-treatment.htm

We also work with www.nacd.org and have seen major improvement with them as well. 

http://nacd.org/labels/cerebral_palsy.php

http://nacd.org/labels/brain_injury.php

My kids both take a mushroom formula called Mind Force. It contains Lion's Mane mushroom which has a compound that stimulated nerves to grow. It is not a cure at all, but we have seen some benefit from this. It also helps keeps my kids from getting sick a lot, as mushrooms are mainly immune modulators. 

http://www.newchapter.com/mushrooms/lifeshield-mind-force

[RemiJP]

For children with cerebral palsy who cannot talk or who are hard to understand, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies may be beneficial. There are many ways that speech therapists and OTs can work together to help a child with even with severe CP access a low or high tech communication system, including head switches or eye gaze systems that allow a child to use a speech generating device to communicate. Most large hospitals have AAC clinics, but its really common for kids with CP to not be referred right away, it's often up to the parents to push for it.

[blessed.mommy]

I have mild cerebral palsy. I owe my current ability to walk (and the amount of gait I have) to physical therapy and occupational therapy. I also did a therapy program on horseback once...that was AMAZING and I highly recommend it. It's called Hippotherapy.

Does your cousin wear AFOs (Leg Braces)?

[BeautyforAshes]

Originally Posted by oaktreemama 

PT and OT and any kind of movement type therapies can certainly help. They may want to consider water therapy if they can afford it. I guess it depends on what you mean by natural remedies. If you mean homeopathy or herbs or some such-there is no natural remedy that can overcome the brain damage the baby or child suffered that led to the CP diagnosis.

  I am a PT, and I wholeheartedly agree with the above.  I worry about people preying on parents who are desperate for help by selling them "remedies" for something like CP.

[briannas auntie]

I have heard that special needs yoga can help kids with cerebral palsy to decrease spasticity in their limbs.  There is an older book still in publication called "Yoga for Special Needs", that helps you do yoga poses on kids with disabilities.  I can't remember who the author is, but the book is sold on amazon.com.  Because of my disability, I have spasticity in my legs and have found yoga helps a great deal with the pain from this, as well as the spasms that make it hard to keep my feet on the footplate of my wheelchair.

There is a girl that goes to a neighboring church that helped her parents with the church service once a month at a local nursing home (our church helps with this too).  She has cerebral palsy and can't talk or walk.  Her mom told me that an occupational therapist helped her talk by the mean of a communication computer (Dynavox) that is hooked to her wheelchair.  She can press buttons on the computer screen and the computer says what she has wrote or what symbol she has pointed to on the screen.  That might ber helpful in terms of communication. 

Jessie

[PikkuMyy]

Can you tell us more about what they have tried so far? And what therapies is he currently receiving?

There are many different alternative communication devices that allow people with CP to speak. Dynavox is one of them but there are several others. And the trend these days is moving more towards things like the iPad with special software, which is far more customizable and easy to use than things like the Dynavox. (Not that I'm down on that particular one.)

I would urge them to work towards getting him one of these devices ASAP because the longer he goes without any way to communicate, the longer it will take for him to do so successfully, and the unhappier he and his family will be. Everyone has the right to communicate.

[blessedwithboys]

Hippotherapy or any type of animal-assisted therapy

Intensive suit therapy

Sensory-integrative OT

There are no herbs or vitamins that will repair the brain damage.

(My BFF has a 13yo ds with spastic diplegia)

[dbsam]

My son's CP is much less severe than your cousin's so my response may not be too helpful.  I feel intensive PT, OT, DT and ST helped my son a lot - especially PT.  We were lucky to have a wonderful PT for the first three years of his life.  She retired and we have gone through several since then.  Finding the right PT makes a world of difference.  For the first few years of his life we rarely left the house because we saw therapists and did 'therapy homework' constantly.  However, I know parents who did the same as us and their child did not have the same results.  As pp's mentioned, the severity and symptoms can vary greatly depending upon the injury. 

I'm not sure if your cousin has much pain, but my son had/has a lot of lower body pain.  When he was three the doctors prescribed Neurontin for his pain.  We ended up not giving him the prescription because we started giving him high doses of CLO and it really helps reduce his pain - although I don't completely understand  why.  Continued PT and daily stretching also helps.   If your cousin cannot communicate, his parents may not know if he is in pain.   The neurologists and orthopedic surgeons told us repeatedly that CP does not cause pain.  I'm not sure why they say that...the severe tightness can cause pain.  I wish we knew that when my son was too young to talk. 

Edited by dbsam - 4/8/11 at 5:12pm