[1] The term diplegia can refer to any bodily area, such as the face, arms, or legs.
[5] Facial paralysis is usually caused by traumatic, infectious, neurological, metabolic, toxic, vascular, and idiopathic conditions.
Moderate diplegia means the person can usually walk but with a slight bend in the knees.
Currently the treatments for children are concentrated primarily on independent walking but instead a more independence-oriented therapeutic approach would be more beneficial.
This could include using a walker or wheelchair to get around and do things easier than focusing all the attention on walking so early.
[11] “This first year sees the development of many milestones, such as head control, reaching out for a toy, sitting, starting to vocalize sounds, and finger feeding.” [8] Most parents want their children to excel very fast, but there is a wide upper and lower range of development time for premature babies so it's very hard to diagnose cerebral palsy or diplegia this early.
Parents should not force the child to sit, crawl, or walk a certain way during this age period.
If a child is not walking yet, then this is usually caused by a problem in balance, muscle coordination, spasticity, or leg alignment.
[8] “By the time a child reaches this age the rate of physical improvement has leveled off in areas such as balance and coordination, and it's a good idea to refocus the child’s attention away from additional physical improvement and toward intellectual learning.”[8] During this time period a child should lean away from physical therapy and do more outdoor or social exercises such as sports and adaptive P.E.
This will usually decrease a little when a child hits puberty and gains height and weight because walking becomes harder during this changing period.
One way to do this is for parents to compromise and let the child make smaller decisions so they feel important.
Going back to therapy during puberty is recommended so the teenager can adjust to the increase in height and weight and not regress as much.
[8] In 1890 Sachs and Peterson first referenced to the term diplegia, along with the word paraplegia, for their cerebral palsy classification.
In 1955 the word diplegia was used in the clinical field to describe a patient whose limbs were affected in a symmetrical way.
Later in 1956 diplegia was presented as a form of bilateral cerebral palsy affecting like parts on either side of the body.
In 1965 Milani Comparetti distinguished diplegia from tetraplegia by considering the patient's upper limb's ability to express a sufficient support reaction.