| 9pm Friday, Sydney The conference is now 3 days old and will conclude on Saturday evening. It has been heavily based on the medical model (ie whats wrong with you and how can we fix it), however there has been two streams covering the social model (ie, assisting integration in society to live a good life). Many of the sessions have involved the presentation of research ending in their conclusions. Some of the topics studied have frustrated me as they are setting out to quantify what we already suspect and the subsequent affirmative finding of what is common knowledge (certainly for anyone who has CP or a family member with CP) adds little to the mix. It has certainly emphasized to me that any support that the Society gives to research must have outcomes that will make a difference. "Research follows the money" was a quote I noted, how true, Botox was being researched to a degree not really warranted, but alas, there is funding there! However that being said, there have been some great presentations that have added to my knowledge base and I will share some of these with you: |
 Dr Karen Nelson |
Prof Karen Nelson (from the USA, her work in the 90s proved that CP was there well before the birthing process, which radically changed the thinking of the time) gave a talk on the best chances for a break through on prevention: Evelated body temperature experienced by the mother prior and during delivery had a 7 fold effect on increasing the incidence of CP. Proper hydration can help with temperature control during this period together with other techniques. Congential malformations of a non cerebral nature were also strongly linked to CP. A long menstrual cycle of the mother of >30days was also correlated with an increase in CP. Of course the other factors of prematurity, multiple births, viral infections were also mentioned.
Stressful births where CP may be likely in the child can be treated with hypothermia techniques (cooling the brain, a technique pioneered in NZ), there was about a 50% efficacy with this technique but it required skilled staff with appropriate equipment and so was not readily available in standard maternity wards.
An area of great interest is the use of magnesium suplhate (MgSO4) taken by the mother during pregnancy. The magnesium sulphate has the effect of calming hyper activity of the growing brain (brain growth is most rapid from 20 weeks through to 10 weeks after the birth), relaxing muscles, acting as an anticoagulant and assisting with blood flow. It is a product that is well understood by the medical profession already, but its link in reducing CP has only recently been established.
Well no mention was made of father's having anything to do with the cause of CP, so I am feeling a bit left out of the picture :)
Other interesting statistics gathered through the course of various presentations: 58% of births with CP are full term. CP incidence throughout the world vary from 1.1 to 4.9/1000 births. 90% of children born with CP will grow into adulthood.
I attended another interesting talk by Prof Karl Chambers (paedeatric orthopedic surgeon) today. He mentioned his trip to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In Haiti they do not have any CP, the country is so poor that anyone born with significant CP does not make it through their youth..... wow.
Prof Alastair MacLennan and his team at Adelaide University are doing a very comprehensive study into genome research and markers that may be related to CP. The prospects for this research to identify genetic susceptibility has good potential. It will be interesting to see how this developes over the next few years. Maybe the finger may point at the dad's genes playing a role????
That's it from me :)
Cheers..... Harvey Brunt
The Convention Centre at Darling Harbour