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Surgery of the hand in infants with cerebral palsy


Theodore Leonard Sarkin

Abstract

Normally a picture or image of the body becomes established in the brain so that eventually activities such as walking, etc., become possible without conscious  afferent  information. If corrective limb surgery is performed on cerebral-palsy patients as soon after birth as diagnosis and assessment permit, afferents which reach the brain  establish an image of the corrected rather than of the deformed body, and natural and unthinking use of the limb is more likely to become established. A surgical procedure for correction of the common spastic hand and forearm in cerebral palsy which is held flexed at the elbow, pronated at the forearm, flexed and ulnar-deviated at the wrist and with tightly clenched fingers which are closed over the firmly flexed and adducted thumb, is described. Case reports of 8 infants between the ages of I2 - 18 months operated upon by this procedure and results obtained after a follow-up of 7 -10 years are presented.

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eISSN: 2078-5135
print ISSN: 0256-9574