According to the Mayo Clinic, cerebral palsy is a term for a group of disorders that appear during the first few years of life and affect a child's ability to perform normal movements and to control muscle contractions.
First Identified
Cerebral palsy was first identified by the British surgeon William Little in 1860. Little believed that the initial cause of cerebral palsy was due to a severe depletion of oxygen to the body.
New Cases
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 10,000 babies will develop cerebral palsy each year.
Children
According to the March of Dimes Foundation, about every 2 to 3 children out of 1,000 have cerebral palsy.
Mental Impairments
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes (NINDS), about two-thirds of children who have cerebral palsy are also mentally impaired.
Costs
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes (NINDS), the estimated lifetime costs for cerebral palsy were more than $921,000 per patient as of 2003.
