Health Law

Child Has Stroke and Receives Cerebral Palsy Diagnosis

When Jessica Spear gave birth to her son Brendon Spear she believed that aside from some abnormal behavior from time to time after being born he was a normal, healthy child. However, only weeks after his birth she reports that he was unable to turn his head to the right. A couple of months later she noticed that he was clearly left handed because he only used his left hand to touch anything. When he began walking at 13 months, Spear became more worried as he kept falling because he had trouble picking up his right foot to walk.

Spear, who is a resident of St. Louis, promptly decided that these actions may not be a coincidence or 'normal' and decided to take Brendon in to be examined by doctors.  At 19 months old, and after several examinations, it was discovered that Brendon was suffering from the neuromuscular disorder cerebral palsy. The disorder, which will serve as a disability for the remainder of his life, was the result of a stroke he suffered while still in the uterus, though doctors did not catch that he had either had the stroke who was born with cerebral palsy.

"It was devastating because one, you never hear of stroke in children, and two, it took so long to get a diagnosis," says Spear. "I thought, 'why the heck didn't someone tell me this long before now?' I felt very isolated as a parent."

Stroke Is Rare but More Severe in Children

Although there are reportedly few cases of pediatric strokes that occur in the United States, the repercussions they can have on the infant's body can potentially be worse than in adults. Strokes in children can lead to a variety of brain and learning disorders, but the main disability found to affect child stroke victims has been cerebral palsy. In light of Spear's case and the few others like hers, more research is being done on stroke in children, treatment, and early detection by doctors. Some studies have surfaced claiming there are more cases of stroke in infants through their teen years than was previously known. Researchers believe they are finding a higher rate of pediatric stroke than they thought they would because of improper coding or typing errors in medical records at hospitals throughout the country. 

Full post as published by Cerebral Palsy Law Blog on September 25, 2009 (boomark / email).