Quality of life in patients with cerebral palsy: literature review

Abstract

Currently, much attention is paid to the study of the quality of life of patients suffering from chronic pathology. The quality of life is closely related to the patient’s awareness of confidence and well-being in many areas, not only with the perception of their physical condition, but also in many other aspects of life including social interactions, emotional experiences, spiritual values and in other areas. Cerebral palsy is a severe chronic disabling disease with the presence of not only motor disorders, but also speech, cognitive, mental health problems that lead to social maladaptation. There are special tools for quality of life assessment, which include various questionnaires. Some of them, for example, the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) has a special module “Cerebral palsy”, the following problems are covered: daily activities, movement and balance, pain, fatigue, eating. From the age of 5 years, the block «speech and communication», «school classes» is added. Such questionnaires allow assessing quality of life disturbances by cerebral palsy and use these data for dynamic observation during the treatment. The article presents the most objective studies of the quality of life with cerebral palsy. Pain in patients with cerebral palsy is a serious problem and has a significant negative impact on the quality of life. It has been shown that injections of botulinum toxin type A can not only lead to pain reduction, but significantly improve the functioning of patients with cerebral palsy and improve their quality of life. It is equally important to assess the quality of life of parents and relatives of sick children. There is evidence that severe motor disorders by cerebral palsy have a significant negative impact on the quality of life and the development of depression by mothers who take care of a child.