Purpose:
Diagnosis of cerebral palsy in child patients is mainly based on past history and clinical symptoms. During the diagnosis process, transcranial ultrasonography, brain CT, brain MRI, electroencephalogram and somatosensory evoked potentials ar...
Purpose:
Diagnosis of cerebral palsy in child patients is mainly based on past history and clinical symptoms. During the diagnosis process, transcranial ultrasonography, brain CT, brain MRI, electroencephalogram and somatosensory evoked potentials are used as ancillary measures. The purpose of this study is to verify the frequency of the above tests utilized in child patients with cerebral palsy, to verify that group regarded as normal distal latency according to Greenberg's classification system for somatosensory evoked potential at the same time showing greater difference between left and right amplitude significantly increases in child patients with cerebral palsy compared to normal children.
Subjects and Procedure:
15 child patients with cerebral palsy who received treatment at the pediatric rehabilitation clinic of Gill Medical Center from July, 2005 to October 2005 were selected as the subject of this study, and 1) using their medical record as reference, the frequency of brain CT scan, brain MRI, and electroencephalogram prescribed by clinical manifestation were examined,
2) by carrying out median nerve somatosensory evoked potential, which was then categorized based on the Greenberg classification, and finally, 3) verified whether the ratio of left & right amplitude in median nerve somatosensory evoked potential of child patients with cerebral palsy is statistically significant in comparison with that of the normal group.
Results: Brain tests used for the subject child patients with cerebral palsy included 6 cases of brain MRI, 5 cases of ultrasound scans, 2 cases of electroencephalogram, and 1 case of CT and results of median nerve somatosensory evoked potential showed that only 38% of the child patients belonged to the group showing abnormal observation based on Greenberg . On the other hand, left & right amplitude difference ratio of all child patients showed significant differences (t= 5.204,p<0.01) from that of the children in the normal group.
Conclusion:
In child patients with cerebral palsy, the ratio of left & right amplitude in median nerve somatosensory evoked potential displayed significant difference when compared to that of the normal group, and Hemispheric asymmetry can be used as a useful scale in studies on median nerve somatosensory evoked potential conducted for child patients with cerebral palsy.