Classifications of cerebral palsy

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a clinical entity that encompasses different cerebral disorders. This affection is very frequent in the general population and manifests mostly with severe dysfunction involving several organs and districts. The dysfunction affects not only the motor features, but also is usually associated with severe cognitive, behavioral and communication disorders. Most of these patients do not work at all and suffer severe cognitive delay. For the classification of CP it is useful to compare the results and the data of different motor impairment subgroups, the evaluation of the association of CP with the other neurologic and psychiatric dysfunctions, the association with other non-cerebral impairments, and the results of intervention therapies, as well as establishing the etiological events which cause the disorder. In other words the main goal of a widely recognized CP classification is to collect the children with the disorder into a more homogeneous group or category of the same type to have epidemiologic results in the different fields of this heterogeneous disorder. For 150 years, the classification of CP has been to consider its relevant importance and address the evaluation of motor affection. More recently, new attention has been addressed to other aspects, which involve the disorder including etiology and timing of the presumed events, type, severity of the motor involvement, anatomical distribution, and associated dysfunction. Together with the classification of motor involvement and its classic differentiation in spastic, dyskinetic, ataxic and mixed, and related forms, attention has moved to develop a classification regarding the gross motor functions, to evaluate the bimanual fine motor activity and the ability of patients with CP to use their hands in routine situations. A scale has been prepared and used for the evaluation of communication, the mode of walking and dystonic impairment.