March is National Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month. Here at Jobskin we are passionate about spreading awareness of Cerebral Palsy and by helping those affected by this condition. The campaign helps to raise awareness of Cerebral Palsy and how it affects individuals. There are many events taking place around the UK to raise awareness of this month’s campaign and in this edition of the Jobskin newsletter, we look at some key facts relating to the condition.
CP is a group of lifelong conditions that affect movement and coordination. Symptoms vary widely between individuals but often include these movement and development problems: low or high muscle tone (hypotonia or hypertonia), delays in reaching development milestones, muscles weakness, uncoordinated movements, tremors, muscle spasms and crouched gait. These symptoms, often amongst others including speech, swallowing, hearing and learning difficulties, are present in different combinations and vary in severity with each patient.
There are 4 main types of Cerebral Palsy:
- Spastic Cerebral Palsy
- Dyskinetic Cerebral Palsy
- Ataxic Cerebral Palsy
- Mixed Cerebral Palsy
The parts of the body affected can also vary, sometimes only one side of the body is affected (hemiplegia), sometimes the whole body is affected (quadriplegia), and sometimes one limb is affected (monoplegia).
Although there is no known cure for Cerebral Palsy, there are a number of treatments available to increase the individuals quality of life, ability and independence. SDO (Sensory Dynamic Orthosis) garments are designed to normalise muscle tone by increasing sensory and proprioceptive feedback and improve musculoskeletal stability and alignment; all whilst allowing movement to allow for motor learning and neural integration. This then optimises and enhances functional performance by improving motor control and fluency of movement. Here at Jobskin we manufacture the made to measure Sensory Dynamic Orthosis (SDO) that help many individuals living with Cerebral Palsy to manage their symptoms.
In order to help raise awareness for Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, you can begin by wearing green clothing, as the colour green represents new growth and inspires a renewed life. You could also make a small donation to CP charities and use #jobskin along with #sensorydynamicorthosis #cpawarenessmonth, #cerebralpalsyawareness, or #cerebralpalsyawarenessmonth to show your full support on social media.