Strabismus in Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

The term cerebral palsy denotes a bilateral affection of the brain with a lack of any uniform aetiology or pathology: sometimes there is an arrested development or an infective process in intra-uterine life so that the condition is determined pre-natally; sometimes there is some factor which is related to the birth particularly when there is a significant degree of prematurity or following a period of profound neonatal anoxia; in other cases there may be a post-natal influence such as an infective agent causing an encephalitis or meningitis, or even a degenerative condition. However, it is now considered that this interpretation of cerebral palsy is too diffuse and the term should be reserved for conditions in which the motor deficits stem from an injury to the brain during the birth process or immediately thereafter. Cerebral palsy represents a heterogeneous group of conditions which manifests a wide variety of paralytic and spastic features, associated with abnormal movements which tend to be choreiform or athetoid in nature, and there is almost invariably some degree of mental defect.